


The Moth and the Fireflies

by themushroomman



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Humor, Slow Build, Slow Burn, magic definitely, magic maybe?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 21,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themushroomman/pseuds/themushroomman
Summary: On rainy days you'll sometimes see them over the lake, dancing. Dark wings and flashes of light. As the sun comes out, they nestle under leaves to rest. They watch a young woman, tired of her old life but scared of this new one, step off the bus to Stardew Valley. She's hoping to find some peace, but they know that she will find much, much more.





	1. Moving In

“Hi there, you must be Jess!”

 

“Uh, yeah, that’s me. Nice to meet you?”

 

“I’m Caroline, Pierre’s wife.”

 

“Oh, okay. Pierre is the one who runs the shop…?”

 

“Yes, that’s him.”

 

“Sorry, I’ve met so many people today. I’m having trouble remembering them all. I’m bad with names.”

 

“I understand. You look exhausted.”

 

“Oh, yeah. I spent all morning clearing out an area on the farm to start growing some vegetables. I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow, ahaha. And Pierre convinced me to buy a bunch of seeds, so I’m pretty much broke now, too.”

 

“Oh no. He is a salesman, isn’t he? Are you going to be alright? It wouldn’t be a bother at all if you stayed for dinner.”

 

“No, I’m fine. Brought a lot of energy bars with me. I just feel a little...I don’t know. I keep getting lost. I can’t figure out how to make a scarecrow. That sort of thing.” Jess laughed nervously.

 

“Well I’m very impressed that a young person like you would even consider moving out here as a farmer in the first place. I have to practically drag my daughter Abigail out by the hair to get her to even spend time outside in the garden with me. Maybe you could teach her a thing or two!”

 

Jess laughed again. It sounded more forced this time. “Well it was nice meeting you, um, Caroline.”

 

“You too, Jess. Come by any time if you’d like a warm meal.”

 

Jess waved politely and made her escape for the door of the shop.

 

***

 

_Plock, plock_. A fish nibbled at Jess’s hook, bouncing the bobber in the water, but then darted off down the river. Jess heaved a sigh. This wasn’t so bad, though. With her muscles screaming from all the farm work, sitting and just waiting for fish was a nice relief. And the scenery was just breathtaking. Every time a spring breeze gusted down from the mountain it would shake waves of cherry blossoms from the trees and send them scattering over Pelican Town’s cobble roads and into the river. It had been years since Jess had seen something this pretty in person. Her former neighborhood in Zuzu City wasn’t exactly know for its vistas.

 

“You should stop by the Saloon tomorrow evening.”

 

“Huh?” Jess glanced over her shoulder to Sam, who sat in the shade of a large bush watching her and idly spiking his blonde hair even taller.  

 

“The Saloon. Tomorrow. You should stop by and say hi. You can meet Sebastian and Abby and everyone else. It can really get hopping on Fridays!”

 

“I’m not really good with crowds.” Jess turned back to the fishing rod.

 

“Well, by ‘hopping’ I mean like fifteen people. This town’s fricking tiny. But Seb and I play pool, and there’s an arcade game, and if he’s in a good mood, Gus might make a round of mozzarella sticks for everyone!”

 

“I’ll see.”

 

“C’mon, you gotta! You need to tell them the story about how you got the scar that looks like a bear! They don’t believe me.”

 

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll—oh, oh! It’s tugging! I caught something!” Jess began to reel with gusto, and, with a wet _glorp_ , brought up a chunk of slimy reed wrapped around a soda can. “Oh.”

 

“Bahaha! Now pose with your catch.” Sam pulled his phone out to snap a picture. “Are you sure this is your first time fishing? You’re such a pro!”

 

Jess felt herself flush and tore the can off her hook and hucked it at Sam. “Not my fault there’s more trash in this river than fish. I’ve been out here all afternoon and I’ve gotten one fish, a whole bunch of algae, and—oh gross, are you actually drinking that?”

 

Sam shrugged, mouth full of cola. “It was sealed, so I’m sure it’s fine. And I’m like the only one in town who drinks it. I’m really doing a service. I’ll even recycle the can when I’m done.”

 

“Well I hope you turn blue,” Jess grumbled.

 

“Oh come on. That’s just a myth.”

 

“It’s not, actually. There are cases of skin discoloration that pop up every now and then. When I got hired at Joja, one of the things I had to do was watch a webinar on what to say if someone asked me about it. What I wasn’t allowed to outright say, for legal reasons, and what I was allowed to ‘suggest’.”

 

“That’s pretty underhanded.” Sam took another slurp of soda.

 

“Yeah, I know, but I didn’t really have a choice. It was either follow the script or be unemployed.”

 

“I’m not blaming you. I’ve got a part-time job at the JojaMart too. It sucks, but you gotta make money somehow, right?”

 

“Yeah. I just wish…” Jess petered off as she cast into the river again.

 

“What?” Sam started dancing his fingers along the side of the can as if playing a guitar.

 

“Nothing. I’m here now, right? That’s all that matters.”

 

“You _are_ here now. Which is why you need to come to the saloon on Friday.”

 

***

 

_Am I here at the right time? Sam never told me when to show up. I don’t want be here not knowing anyone._

 

_Do I smell? I changed, but maybe that’s not enough. I gotta make sure not to lift my arms up. Yoba, I’m a gross, stinky freak. I bet my breath smells, too. I shouldn’t have eaten those spring onions. Now I can’t get too close to people._

 

_What if I’m not supposed to be wearing overalls? Should I go home and change? I think I should go home._

 

“Jess? Hi! You going in or coming out?” Jess was jolted out of her thoughts by the carpenter— _oh hell, what was her name?—_ and the man she was with. They must have been waiting for her while she dithered on the steps of the Stardrop Saloon.

 

“Sorry! I was just—yeah—in.” Jess flushed red. She tried several times to push the door open before realizing the handle was obviously labeled “pull”. She flushed even redder and scurried inside, trying not to think about the couple behind her.

 

“Jess! Over here! Glad you actually came!”

 

Jess saw Sam waving excitedly from a large pool table off to her right. To her left, a jukebox blared music. The smell of something hot and greasy hung in the air. There were several other patrons, all looking at her curiously. She gave them a vague wave and hustled over to Sam.

 

“Okay!” Sam was already talking before she made it all the way to him. “You need to tell them the bear scar story _and_ the Joja cola turning you blue story. They don’t believe either. Oh! This is Sebastian,” Sam waved at the tired, pale boy leaning on a pool cue, “and that’s Abigail.” He pointed to a purple-haired girl sitting on the couch behind him.

 

“Hi…” Jess’s voice came out higher than she meant it to.

 

“Hey. I’m gonna break the rack, okay, Sam?” Sebastian was already turning back to the pool table.

 

Jess stood watching, fiddling with her hands for several seconds, but she kept feeling like she was in somebody’s way. “Mind if I, uh, sit?” She managed to ask Abigail, pointing at the empty spot on the couch.

 

“Oh. Sure.”

 

_Not too close. Arms down. Keep your stink to yourself._ There was a long silence between them as Sam got distracted playfully accusing Sebastian of cheating.

 

“So,” Abigail finally said, “you’re clearing out the old farm?”

 

“Yeah, ah, well, trying to, at least.” Jess looked down at her blistered hands and laughed hoarsely. “It’s slow going.” Abigail smelled so nice and earthy. _Why am I so obsessed with smells this evening?_

 

“Well don’t go too fast. I’m gonna miss exploring the wilds. It’ll be a shame to see that all turn into, I don’t know, fields? Pasture? What are you planning on doing with it?”

 

“Oh, I don’t really know. All I’ve got is a little patch of parsnips. I’m too busy beating crows away from them to think about what to do with the rest of everything. If you—”

 

“Then why—oh, sorry, what were you saying?”

 

“No, just, if you want to keep coming by and exploring, feel—you can feel free too.”

 

“Hmm, well thanks, but I don’t think it’s gonna be the same now that it’s inhabited.”

 

“What were _you_ saying?”

 

“Just, why are you a farmer if you don’t have any plan for what you’re doing? I don’t mean to be rude, but, like, why’d you move out here all of a sudden? After leaving the farm abandoned for so many years?”

 

Jess looked down at the couch and started picking at the cracked fake leather. “I guess Sam already told you I used to work for Joja? It was just kinda...too much for me and I had to leave. Found out my grandpa had left Old Stone Farm to me, and I took it as a sign.”

 

“Hey, I’m gonna go order a pizza for us.” Sam cut in. “Jess, start in on the bear scar story. I’ll be back for the good part! Oh, and Abby, don’t let Sebastian cheat again while I’m gone.”

 

“I don’t need to cheat. I’ve just got this handy trick called ‘being good at pool,’” Sebastian said.

 

“ _Bear story_!” Sam shouted as he dashed toward the bar.


	2. The Smell of Quartz

Jess had taken to power-walking around Stardew Valley. There was so much to do in the day and it took so long to get places. She would have preferred to run, just she got weird looks from people. Also, she’d already run right into the grumpy old man in the wheelchair and he’d chewed her out. Power-walking meant no more running into people.

 

Jess scooted up the steps to the library just as the door opened and she ran right into the purple-haired girl.

 

“Ah!”

 

“Oh Yoba, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t—just—” Jess dropped to the ground trying to collect the armful of artifacts she’s been carrying. “Are you okay? Um, sorry, I forgot your name.”

 

“No problem, you just startled me. I’m Abigail, and here’s your...chicken statue?”

 

“Oh, haha, yeah, found that on the farm. I’m donating artifacts that I find around the valley to Gunther.”

 

“Well shoot, you just missed him. He closes at 6.”

 

“I’m like,” Jess checked her watch, “a minute late. Isn’t he still in there?”

 

“No, he’s gone at 6 on the dot. Doesn’t close down or anything. Just turned the lights off on me and headed upstairs.”

 

“Oh.” Jess peered up at the small second story window. “I wonder what he does up there.”

 

Abigail shrugged. “I’ve tried to get him to talk, but he’s really just focused on the books and the museum. He barely ever leaves the building.” She glanced up at the window and narrowed her eyes. “Really makes you wonder how the whole museum collection and half the books disappeared, this being his one job and all. Mysterious. Anyways, you said artifacts? What else you got?” She leaned forward curiously, her hair falling in just the right way that Jess didn’t have to worry about seeing down her shirt.

 

“Well, there’s this spoon I found in the mud on the other side of the river.”

 

“Okay, I guess we’re being generous with the term ‘artifact’.”

 

“Hey, it’s...old. 10 years old, at least.” Abigail looked unconvinced. “Okay, the other ones are better. There’s this really old dried up starfish from the beach, and...you’ve seen the chicken statue...aaaand this skull I found over near Linus’s tent in the mountains.”

 

“No way. You found a skull up there?”

 

“Well, I was hoeing up the ground.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I saw some worms that I was hoping to use as bait. Turns out they were crawling around a skull.”

 

“That’s _so_ unfair! I’ve been going up to the mountains my whole _life_ and never found anything as cool as bones! I need to start carrying a shovel with me.”

 

“Haha, maybe! There’s all sorts of weird stuff in the dirt around here.”

 

“Yeah.” Abigail grinned.

 

Jess could feel the conversation petering out. “So, where are you headed to?” she asked.

 

“Oh.” The grin on Abigail’s face dropped away. “The graveyard.”

 

“Oh, would you…” _Come on, just ask._ “...uh, like some company?”

 

“No.” Abigail brushed past her with a quick, sharp smile and walked away. She still had that nice, earthy smell about her.

 

Jess looked down at her artifacts and bit her lip hard.

 

***

 

The buzzing grew louder as Jess scrambled up the ladder and out of the mineshaft. Her sword slapped against her leg. For once, she was glad that it was too dull to slice through flesh. She yelped as she felt pincers on her boot, but with a frantic kick she was free and up the tunnel.

 

She crawled out into the mine entrance and collapsed on the ground gasping. It had just been three flies, and they’d only left her with a couple shallow scrapes, but she couldn’t stop shaking.

 

Her heart was still racing after a few minutes, but her breath was under control, so she rolled over to her knees and began to sort through her bag to organize what she’d found: a lot of stone, of course, some clay, some coal, one of those sticky earth crystal things that the Gunther had told her about, which had fused itself to several lumps of copper ore, and a few pretty crystals of quartz. She inspected one a little closer. They had the same earthy smell that Abigail did.

 

_For Yoba’s sake, I must be hallucinating. I need to get home and get some sleep_

 

She left the cave trying to pry the copper out of the earth crystal’s grasp. Was it worth fighting giant bugs for?

 

 _Well, I have it now. And I won’t have to go into the mine for a long time. Just got to get this to the museum and I can go home and..._ Jess came to a stop as she walked into town and caught a whiff of something out of the Stardrop Saloon’s open windows. _Pancakes? On a Friday evening? Oh man._ Her mouth started watering.

 

It was a Friday, though, so the place would be packed. And she’d kind of been a hermit for the past few weeks. Everyone would ask where she’d been, and she didn’t want to deal with that.

 

Then she thought about the two sad packets of instant oatmeal waiting as dinner for her at home. The thought of fresh pancakes was just too tempting.

 

 _Maybe it won’t be that busy tonight. It’s a nice, warm summer evening. Maybe people are at the beach._ She took the saloon steps slowly, and carefully eased the big door open so that it wouldn’t jingle.

 

“Why, hi there, Jess!” said the jovial saloon owner, before she was even all the way in the door. The place was as busy as ever, and now everyone was looking at her.

 

“Aww, look at you.” The pretty blue-haired girl slid over the counter and approached to start dusting Jess off. “You’re all banged up! You want me to take you to Harvey?”

 

She had always been so sweet that Jess could never bring herself to tell her that she’s forgotten her name. “Oh, no, I’m fine. I’ll sleep it off. I was just hoping to get some pancakes to go before heading home.”

 

“Well I’ll have Gus whip up a fresh batch. They’re _so_ much better when they’re fresh! Y’heard that Gus?” She turned and swung herself gracefully over the counter again.

 

“JESS! Where have you _been_?” a familiar voice shouted.

 

“Sam, please get down from the pool table,” Gus said without even looking toward the other room.

 

“Hi, guys.” Jess waved to Sam, Abigail, and...the emo one. _Damn, I am_ so _bad with names._

 

Sam launched into an interrogation as she walked over. “Where have you _been_ ? You missed the flower dance, and karaoke night, and you didn’t respond to the invitation to come play the _Solarion Chronicles_ with me and Sebastian—” _Sebastian! I need to write that down somewhere,_ Jess thought. “—and I haven’t seen you at the beach at _all_! What are you doing?”

 

“She’s probably not showing up cause she knows you’ll act like this,” Sebastian said.

 

“Rude!” Sam smacked him with his pool cue.

 

“Sorry, I’ve been really busy with the farm. Tending crops takes a long time. And dances aren’t, um, really my thing, and I’ve kinda forgotten to check my mail lately.” This wasn’t completely true. Watering her field didn’t take all day, but it did tire her out to the point that she didn’t feel like she had the energy to interact with others. She’d been putting off opening her mail for the same reason.

 

“Is that what you’re all banged up from? You kind of look like you’ve been in a fight.”

 

“Like you’d know what it’s like to be in a fight,” Sebastian scoffed with a grin.

 

“Hey! I got these guns and I ain’t afraid to use em.” Sam flexed and pretended to snap his pool cue.

 

“No, I was just in the mines, and there was a big bug that came at me,” Jess said, interrupting what looked to be the start to a pool cue sword fight.

 

Abigail, who’d been doodling in a sketchbook and only partially paying attention, looked up suddenly at this.

 

“Oh yeah? Find anything good down there?” Sam asked.

 

“Y’know, just, like, y’know, stones and...mostly just stones.” Jess was completely thrown off by Abigail’s sudden attention.

 

“Huh, okay. You seem a little frazzled from it. You want some beer?” Sam offered her a half-full mug.

 

“Can you…” Jess glanced back toward the bar, “...are you allowed to have that?

 

“How young do you think I am?” Sam exclaimed, and took a deep swig for emphasis.

 

“I want to hear more about the mines,” Abigail said, smiling, her head tilted.

 

Jess felt her tongue tie itself into a knot preemptively as she searched for the words, so instead she reached for Sam’s beer and finished it off with several overambitious gulps. “That’s, uh, beer alright.” She coughed and set the mug down. “What did you want to know about the mines?”

 

“Have you seen any of these guys?” Abigail made a quick sketch. “The weird moles that look like sausages?”

 

“Oh yeah, the, uh, I forget what they’re called, but yeah. One bit me through my boot, so now I avoid the soft dirt.”

 

“Haha! I knew it! Last month one of them got into my mom’s garden and I had to do some literal whack-a-mole to get it out. But then my mom thought I’d made the whole thing up as an excuse for trashing the vegetables.”

 

“Well I think I’ve still got the scabs on my foot to prove that they’re real.”

 

Abigail grinned. She had such a nice smile, and such pretty lips.

 

“Jess! I got a couple piping hot pancakes for you!” Emily called.

 

Jess shot up from the pool table. “Well, okay, I’d better go, guys.”

 

“I’ll go with you,” Abigail said. “Maybe we’ll see my mom and you can tell her about the monsters that are totally real.”

 

“Okay! Sure!” _I probably shouldn’t have drunk all that beer on an empty stomach_ , she thought. She picked up the pancakes, gave a general wave to everyone, and followed Abigail out the door.

 

As they approach the general store, Jess slowed down. “Wait,” she said as she shimmied her pack over to open it. “I got something for you. Here.” She handed over one of the bits of quartz crystal.

 

“Aw, neat!” Abigail held it up to the lamp light, inspecting it. “How’d you know I like these?”

 

“It just smelled like you, so I thought you would,” Jess said without thinking.

 

Abigail frowned and looked back at her. “You’ve been smelling me?”

 

Jess’s eyes widened and her whole face went red. “Oh Yoba, no! I meant that—I mean, I wasn’t trying to smell you, it’s just...sorry, I shouldn’t have had all that beer.” She covered her cheeks. _This is going to be one of those moments I cringe about for years_.

 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep your weird sniff secret if you keep mine.”

 

“Huh?” Jess’s hands stayed affixed to her cheeks.

 

“This.” Abigail held the quartz like a pill, opened her mouth, and placed it on her tongue. Jess watched her close her mouth and swallow.

 

A moth hit the lamp above them.

 

A cool breeze blew down from the mountain.

 

A pair of fireflies flew between the two girls, blinking lazily.

 

“O-oh.” Jess finally said.

 

“Keep my secret, I’ll keep yours,” Abigail whispered.


	3. Names

Jess had trouble sleeping that night. The moth and the fireflies must have stayed with her, and they danced through her head. They kept her company as she stayed up sorting through her mail.

 

They were still in her mind the next morning as she watered her melons and blueberries.

 

“That’s it,” she said to the farm cat Fuzzy, who was watching her drowsily from the front porch. “I need to go find her and figure out what that was.”

 

She made sure she had more quartz in her pocket, and set off.

 

What followed was several hours of wandering around Pelican Town making awkward small talk with people whose names she didn’t remember in search of Abigail.

 

She finally found her skipping stones from the bridge by JojaMart.

 

“Hey, nosey,” Abigail said, swiping aside purple bangs that had stuck to her forehead.

 

Jess flushed, but remained focused. “I need to know what happened last night. I have so many questions.”

 

Abigail raised her eyebrows and slung another stone into the river.

 

“When did you start eating rocks?”

 

“Well that’s a story.” Abigail glanced around with exaggerated covertness. “There used to be this display in the temple in our house—have you seen the temple in our house? It’s weird, but that’s another story. This display was just some candles with quartz around it, and it always looked like candy to me as a kid. One day I was alone and I went in and grabbed a piece and stuck it in my mouth, and after a few seconds it started disintegrating—the way cotton candy does. It has this nice aftertaste that’s sort of like sweet dirt. I would sneak pieces like candy. Never thought it was weird until Sebastian saw me eating one and freaked out.”

 

“That’s...crazy—I mean, I believe you, but that’s crazy. You know that, right?”

 

“Not the weirdest thing that’s happened.”

 

“Explain?”

 

“No, that’ll have to wait. I need to know more of your secrets before I tell you more of mine.”

 

“Okay, well back to the eating quartz thing, is that all? Or can you, like,” Jess gestured at the skipping stones Abigail was holding.

 

“Oh, no, I’ve tried, but the only other time it happened was when I was at this thrift store in Zuzu City and I saw the broken-off arm of a jade statue laying on the ground looking pretty tasty. That one disintegrated, and it had a sort of flowery taste, but it’s the only other thing that’s worked.”

 

“You ate the arm of a statue that was lying on the floor in a thrift shop?”

 

“I sure did. And it seems like you got another secret out of me. I need one of yours.”

 

“Oh geez.”

 

“Come on!” Abigail leaned over the side of the bridge and dropped a rock into her reflection. “It’s not that hard. What’s something that no one else knows about you?”

 

Jess chewed her lip. “Okay, there’s this thing: I don’t remember people’s names. I’ve forgotten a lot of names and I don’t know how to bring it up.”

 

“Who don’t you remember?”

 

“Uhhmm,” Jess chewed her lip harder, “most everybody.”

 

“Who _do_ you remember? Do you know my name?”

 

“Well, of course. You’re Abigail.”

 

“Ugh.” Abigail screwed her face up. “I’m not, like, your great aunt. Just call me Abby.”

 

“Oh! Okay.”

 

“Can you remember that?”

 

“Yeah.” _I think._

 

“But who else? Who else?” Jess had Abigail’s—Abby’s—full attention now, and as usual, it was completely muddling her thoughts.

 

“Well, Sam, and Ssss—sebastian—”

 

“What did you just look at your wrist for?” Abby grabbed her arm. “You wrote his name down?”

 

“I—well yeah. I know your dad, Pierre—”

 

“Because his name’s written on the front of our shop.”

 

“—okay, but I know Robin too, and…the Mayor.”

 

“Whose name is…?”

 

“L something. Linus?”

 

“Nope. That’s the old guy who lives in the tent up on the mountain.”

 

“Yoba curse it all!”

 

Abby snorted and started to laugh. Her hair bounced on her shoulders as she did. “Here, I’ll help you out.” She ripped a few pages out of her sketchbook and uncapped a pen. “Let’s start with my family. You already know me and my dad....Abby...Pierre...and then there’s my mom, Caroline, I’ll write green...hair...bad fashion... next to the sketch so you can tell who she is. Next, the Mullners…”

 

Jess leaned in closer to look at the sketches. The fireflies in her stomach settled down and her face stopped feeling so hot. She made sure to slip Abby the quartz in her pocket before leaving.


	4. Mystery Drink

The deep blue envelope shimmered in the summer sun. Jess almost didn’t want to break the seal open, it was so pretty.

 

She eventually tore it open and found a note on similar blue paper from someone calling themselves “M. Rasmodius, Wizard.” The note said to visit the tower in the forest for more information about the 'rat problem'.

 

“What should I do?” She gathered her two little chicks, Skooch and Scratch, into her lap and started scritching their heads. “This sounds super sketchy. He calls himself a wizard for crying out loud. But it also seems like he knows something. Maybe I wasn’t hallucinating in the community center.”

 

Jess had avoided the run-down building for a good while after she’d seen things in there that Mayor Lewis somehow hadn’t. She’d only gone back to investigate more yesterday because it had been at the top of the to-do list in her journal for weeks now.

 

“Oh, what am I worried about? I have a sword! No one’s gonna mess with me if I have a sword. Thanks, guys.” She eased the chicks off her lap and stood up. “I’m not going to let some dumb wizard scare me.

 

***

 

Jess stood at the door to the tower, scared. There were strange sounds coming from inside of it; maybe a sword wouldn’t be as effective as she thought. But she’d already told the ginger guy who she’d passed in the forest where she was going, and she didn’t want to do the walk of shame back past him saying that she’d chickened out.

 

She carefully knocked on the door. Nothing. The noises from within didn’t pause. She knocked again. On the third rap, the door swung open.

 

Jess immediately noticed the strong scent. It had the sharpness of smoke, the full body of mushrooms that she could practically taste, and something earthy that made her think about Abigail, of course. She guessed the smell was coming from the massive cauldron, frothing with a green liquid.

 

“ _Greetings_ ,” boomed a voice.

 

Jess yelped and put her hand to her sword.

 

“ _I am Rasmodius_ ,” the voice continued. Jess now saw where it was coming from. A figure was slowly taking form behind what looked like a summoning circle. It was a tall man with purple hair and beard, flowing black robes, and a black mystical...cowboy hat? Somehow, the look worked for him.

 

“ _I seek_ the arcane truths.” His voice lost its resonance as he fully coalesced. “I serve as mediary between the physical and the ethereal. I am master to the seven elementals. I keep the sacred cha—well,” he paused, studying Jess thoroughly, “you get the point.”

 

“I do? Um,” Jess tried to decide where she should be looking, “sorry to barge in like this.”

 

Rasmodius waved his hand dismissively. “I have foreseen your coming for a long time.”

 

“Really?” Jess was suddenly scared for new reasons. “What do you know about me?”

 

The wizard’s stare was inscrutable. “Perhaps I should show you something,” he said, and turned to the circle. He pressed a finger to his temple and flung his head back. The candles set around the circle flared with brilliant golden flame, and suddenly, one of the green sprites that had been haunting Jess in the old town center was now bouncing in front of her.

 

“Was that magic that you just did?” Jess whispered. Sure, she knew that there used to be fairies and elves. She’d learned about the elemental wars in school, but living in Zuzu city made it easy to forget that there was more to the world than...corporate drudgery.

 

Again, the wizard didn’t respond to her. He kept speaking: “These spirits call themselves junimos. They do not speak to me, so I am unsure as to their intentions.” He raised a finger to his temple again, and the junimo was gone from the circle in a flash that made Jess tense up.

 

“Umm,” Jess rubbed her eyes. The fumes from the cauldron was burning them. “I saw a paper...a...scroll of some kind that had strange letters on it in one of the center rooms. Was that from the...junimos?”

 

“Interesting.” The wizard stroked his beard. “I shall go see for myself.” This time he raised both hands to his head, and, like the junimo, flashed out of existence.

 

“Oh Yoba.” Jess grabbed at her heart. She was quickly realizing that she wasn’t a fan of magic.

 

She looked around the now empty room. Then back to the summoning circle. “Hel-Hello? I think I’m just gonna...leave. I’ll come back later…?”

 

As she turned back toward the door, there was a _thwonth_ sound and the door opened to let in the wizard.

 

“Oh, oh I don’t like that. Not a fan.” Jess leapt back several steps.

 

Again, the wizard ignored this. “It would seem the junimos desire offerings from the valley in return for their aid. If you intend to fulfill their requests, it would behoove you to read the scroll—to be able to understand the language of the forest.”

 

“I don’t think I have the time to learn another language.” Jess eyed the door behind the wizard. It was still open.

 

“Indeed.” The wizard strode over to the boiling cauldron. He took a mighty sniff of the steam. “Perfect. Perfect! Come. Come drink.” He began ladling green broth into a cup.

 

Jess stayed where she was. “What’s, uh, what’s all in that?”

 

“Mmm, this concoction contains baby fern, moss grub, and caramel-top toadstool. It’s a near-perfect ratio, if I do say so myself.”

 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“It just...I don’t mean to be rude, but taking mystery drinks from stranger is generally considered...y’know.”

 

The wizard frowned, then set the cup down. “Jess. I have no intention of causing any harmful effect to you ever.” He seemed to be see that she wasn’t convinced and his face softened. “Jess, Jessica—”

 

“It’s just Jess.”

 

“Just Jess, then. I understand that you do not know me. I will not ask you to drink this if you feel that it is unsafe, but opening your eyes to the forest will give you many answers. Answers to questions I suspect you’ve had for a long time.”

 

“What...do you mean by that?”

 

“I sense great potential in you, Jess. Though I am as of yet unsure of the way in which it may manifest, I believe you to be touched by elemental power of some kind. Do you perhaps remember an unusual event that occurred in your childhood? Unexplainable powers? Visions? Dreams?”

 

“I’m...you lost me. You think I have magic powers?”

 

“Perhaps.” The wizard looked down at the cauldron and began to stir it thoughtfully. “As I said, it could manifest in a variety of ways, or not at all. It is not necessarily something you can control.”

 

“Well, I think I’ve had a normal life. Does having a bad memory count?”

 

“Hmm. How bad is your memory?”

 

“It’s mostly names and faces. It’s almost impossible for me to remember someone’s name the first couple of times I meet them. Like, I’ve already forgotten yours. It started with V, right?”

 

“Rasmodius.”

 

“Oh, sorry.” Jess chuckled and caught herself. _Why do I suddenly feel comfortable around this guy? He’s only proven to be even weirder than I thought before coming here._

 

“There is more likely a non-magical explanation for your poor memory,” Rasmodius said, “but I would have a much better idea if you had this drink.” He gestured to the cup.

 

“What does it do?” Jess got close enough to the cauldron to see chunks of something bobbing in the froth.

 

“That would take me a very long time to explain. What you will experience is a vision of the forest and gain access to its magic. I would be shocked if the vision lasted longer than a minute.”

 

“What do you do if something goes wrong?” Jess sniffed the boiling broth. This was definitely the earthy smell that reminded her of Abigail.

 

Rasmodius made a show of taking a sip of the broth. “It won’t go wrong.”

 

“How do you know that? What if I have an allergy to—what did you say was in there? Grubs?”

 

“Do you?”

 

“I’ve never eaten a grub before. I wouldn’t know.”

 

“If you feel you need to, I can warp you to the doctor in town at any time you feel that you may need that,” Rasmodius said.

 

Jess huffed out a long, frustrated sigh. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’m so sick of not making choices and missing out on things.” She took the cup from Rasmodius, and, before she could think too much about the bits of bug in it, drained it. “Okay, okay, when is it supposed to kick in…” As she finished her sentence, the wave of nausea hit her.

 

“Yes,” Rasmodius said, seeing Jess clutch her stomach and screw up her face, “it does tend to disagree with people at first. That will pass quickly.”

 

“It’s so...thick. The taste won’t go away.” Jess smacked her lips a few times, then squinted as her vision started to turn green. “Okay, I think it’s starting. Is it supposed to happen this soon?”

 

“Everything is going as it should be. Would you like to sit down?”

 

“No, I think I’m…” Jess lost her train of thought as falling leaves started to fill her vision. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, but she saw the blurry form of a tall pine tree start to take shape in front of her, then another, and another, and another. She counted seven in total. She tried to ask the wizard about them, but couldn’t hear herself when she tried to speak.

 

After about a while, the trees and the green faded, and she saw the empty cup still clutched in her hands.

 

“Is...that it?” she asked. “I don’t feel any different.”

 

“You should be able to communicate with the Junimos now, to some extent. Return to the old community center to discover what they want.”

 

“O-okay.” Jess set the cup down carefully. “Thanks? Thank you for the, uh,” she gestured at the cauldron.

 

“I am always eager to help open the minds of those with potential. I shall stay in contact with you, Jess.”

 

“Good. Great. Okay. I’ll head out then.” Jess headed for the door, hoping to dodge any more conversation that might let the wizard know that she’d forgotten his name yet again.

 

The wizard stared at the door as it closed behind her and frowned slightly.

 

“Just Jess. Just Jess, be careful out there. Many questions. Many questions and not enough answers. Not yet.”


	5. The Soup

“Guys! Over here! I saved us a spot.”  


“Hi Jess!” Sam waved. “Look at you! I didn’t think you’d make it to the Luau.”

 

“I’m trying to not skip community events. I just didn’t really realize how important they were here. Back in Zuzu it didn’t really matter if you missed something like this.”

 

“Well if you were gonna miss one, I’d say the flower dance is it,” Sebastian said. “You’d just be watching us in uncomfortable clothing dancing badly.”

 

“Hey! I’m a great dancer,” Sam interjected.

 

“Yeah, but you’re so allergic to the flowers that you’re sneezing the whole time. Penny’s probably covered in snot by the end of it.”

 

“No I wipe everything on the back of your jacket. Oh hey, speaking of, Penny! C’mon over!” Sam glanced back to Jess. “You don’t mind if Penny hangs out with us? We always do the Luau together.”

 

“Yeah, that’s fine. Where’s, uh,” Jess craned her head to look around, “Where’s Abby?”

 

“She’s usually out on the pier.” Sebastian said. “Dunno. Maybe she’s running late.”

 

“Right, okay. I think I’m just gonna, real quick...” Jess trailed off as she headed toward the pier in her best attempt at a casual stroll. _I’m sure she’s fine. You’re overreacting. Maybe she just didn’t want to come this year._

 

She saw bubbles coming up from the shadowy water underneath the pier. Maybe one of her crab pots had sunk. She took out her fishing rod and plunged it in to hook the thing, then there was a sharp tug on the rod. Jess had enough time to let out a shriek of terror before being ripped off her feet into the ocean.

 

She kicked something big—bigger than a fish—as she floundered and felt it flinch away from her. She came up too fast and cracked her head on the underside of the pier. Over the sound of her frantic breathing she could already hear concerned voices and footsteps rushing toward her.

 

Then a purple head popped out of the water next to her.

 

“Oh _Yoba_ !” Abby looked beyond delighted. “That went so much better than I thought it would! I _got_ you!”

 

“She got you!” Sam was on the pier on his knees, offering a hand up. He looked almost as delighted as Abby.

 

“Were you in on this?” Jess asked. Her breathing was out of control.

 

“Nah, but I’m always a fan of pranks. She’s okay, everyone!” He turned to wave to the concerned villagers. “She’s just wet.”

 

Jess caught the tail end of an absolutely withering stare Pierre was shooting at Abby.

 

“What were you _doing_ under there?” Jess gasped as she started to squeeze the end of her shirt ineffectually.

 

“Waiting for prey. What were _you_ doing?”

 

“Looking for you. You were late, and I was worried that…” Suddenly the hem of Jess’s shirt was very interesting.

 

Abby snorted. “I was on the dock, Jess. I’m not going to fall in and drown in four feet of water.” She began to run her hands through her hair, picking bits of seaweed from it.

 

“Well, y’know about…” Jess’s voice dropped close to a whisper and Abby leaned in, “...the, uh, merfolk? I saw one the other day staring at me, and they were kind of unsettling. I don’t know what their deal is. I guess I’m just paranoid.”

 

“ _WHAT_ ?” It was back to the whole town staring at Jess again. Abby smiled sheepishly and waved, then ducked her head back down. “You said _merfolk_?” she whispered urgently.

 

“Who said merfolk?” Jess felt sam’s spiky hair poke her cheek as he leaned over her shoulder.

 

“Merfolk? Did someone see one of those fishy weirdos?” Now Sebastian was part of the group.

 

“You know about them too?” Abby hissed.

 

“Yeah, I sometimes see them when I’m out in the rain.”

 

“Damn it! Why do I miss all the cool stuff that’s going on in the valley?” Abby said.

 

“Guess you should come to the beach more,” Sebastian responded.

 

Abby made a face at him and kicked sand into the rip in his jeans.

 

“Last call for soup ingredients!” Marnie bellowed from beside the massive wood cauldron in the center of the beach. The group looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

 

“I tossed in the pepperoni I brought already,” Sam said.

 

Sebastian nodded. “I did potatoes again.”

 

“You washed them this time, right?” Sam asked.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I even peeled them.” Sebastian held up his hands. They had three bright green bandaids on them.

 

“Aw, dude,” Abby winced sympathetically. “Did you use a knife? Why not a peeler?”

 

“A...peeler?”

 

“Yoba! Have you never been in a kitchen before? I take my sympathy back.”

 

“Well what did you bring, then?”

 

“Mushrooms.”

 

“Gross.”

 

“Well, hang on,” Sam said. “What kind of mushrooms?”

 

“I don’t know. The normal kind? I just found a half bag of them down in the cellar.”

 

“Aww. Boring.”

 

Abby’s eyes widened. “You think I’d put hallucinogenic shrooms in the potluck soup? Do you know how many times my dad would kill me if I got the governor high?”

 

“Doesn’t that kinda make you want to, though?” Sam grinned. “You’re my new prank partner.”

 

“Getting the town tripping off their asses is a big step from pulling Jess into the ocean. Plus, that’d be like two pranks on her in one afternoon. That’s entirely too many pranks!”

 

“It’s fine. Not the first time it’s happened.” Jess was still looking out at the pier, thinking about the merfolk. It wasn’t until there was a long pause that she looked up and saw the other three staring at her.

 

“Huh. Didn’t peg you as a, uh, partaker,” Sebastian said.

 

“We’ve got us a 420-friendly farmer on our hands!” Sam exclaimed.

 

“So _that’s_ what you’ve been growing on that farm of yours,” Abby said.

 

“What? Oh, no! It was the wizard. He gave me this brew thing that tasted like moss and dirt and made my head spin and me see the forest—but not, like, see, like I _saw_ the forest. It’s hard to explain.”

 

Abby let out a dramatic and jealous gasp. “You got high with the wizard? _I_ want to get high with the wizard! What do I have to do to get high with the wizard?”

 

“Who got high with the wizard?”

 

“Oh, Penny! Hey!” Sam said. Jess tried her best to look innocent, and not like someone who did drugs with members of the occult.

 

“Just a dream of mine,” Abby said.

 

“Seems...very specific. And maybe a little dangerous? If you don’t mind me saying.” Penny smiled slightly. She stirred the bowl of soup she had a little too fast.

 

“What can I say? I live dangerously.”

 

Penny snorted, then covered her mouth.

 

“What you don’t believe me?”

 

“Oh, no, that just made me think about your graduation. I think that’s what you said when you got everyone to order those death pepper platters.”

 

“Oh yeah!” Sebastian, Sam, and Abby chorused.

 

“That’s still one of the worst decisions of my life.” Sebastian added. “I went to pee after eating those, and, like _everything_ started burning.”

 

“Yeah, everything hurt. It felt like my hair was on fire,” Sam said. “I think Emily might have gotten the worst of it. I haven’t seen her eat spicy food since.”

 

“I think my face was the color of my hair,” Penny laughed.

 

Jess nodded along and smiled awkwardly. She always managed to get herself into conversations where other people were talking about past experiences that she wasn’t a part off. _That’s probably because I never go out and do things._

 

Sam must have noticed her uncomfortable and self-pitying expression. “Jess! What did you bring for the soup? You never said. Hope it wasn’t hot peppers.”

 

“I...forgot.”

 

“Aw, boo!”

 

“I was planning on it! I had some big, juicy tomatoes that I picked this morning, but I left them back at the farm. It was too late to go back and get them when I realized I’d left them.”

 

“How early does Alzheimer’s set in?” Abby asked. “Cause you have the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met.”

 

Jess kicked the sand. “I had great memory as a kid. That’s how I got good grades—I’d just memorize my textbooks. But by the time I grew up and got a job my mind was just sorta...shot.”

 

“There’s always next year,” Penny said. “I’d say the soup could have used some fresh produce. It tastes fine, but I always thought it could use a little more...something.”

 

“I think it’s a miracle it tastes good at all,” Abby said. “So many vegetables, and Willy always adds mussels or snails or something. I don’t know what it was this year, but I can smell it from here.”

 

“I bet Lewis is trying not to gag while he talks to the governor,” Sam laughed.

 

Jess gave a half smile and looked back out at the ocean. _There’s always next year. There’s always next year._


	6. The Prairie King

Jess stashed the melon seeds in her backpack, smiling sympathetically as Pierre grumbled about being stuck inside on such a nice day. 

 

There was a muffled yell from upstairs that sounded suspiciously like a curse word, and then some rapid thumping and Abby burst into the shop, fuming.

 

Pierre frowned. “Young lady—”

 

“Oh, don’t start.” Abby snapped. “Uh,” she noticed Jess hunched over her backpack. She suddenly looked a little flustered. “Hey, Jess.”

 

“Oh, hi...You, ah, everything okay?”

 

“It’s just a—it’s dumb. A video game that’s impossible. Hey! Are you any good at gaming? There’s a multiplayer mode. Maybe you could help?

 

Jess hadn’t touched a game since that dating simulator five years back, but something made her say, “I could try.”

 

“Well come on then!” Abby made a face at Pierre as she turned to head back upstairs. “You’ve never been in my room, huh?”

 

“No.” The only time Jess had even been in the house proper was one Tuesday when Emily had convinced her to come up and exercise with some of the ladies. Jess had thought that it would be a breeze, given all the farm work she’d been doing, but it turns out the ladies were  _ intense _ . She’d had to excuse herself after half an hour and then had quietly barfed in the trashcan by the saloon before going home again.

 

“—living in the room since I was a kid, so don’t mind the decoration job. Oh, and how do you feel about the occult?”

 

“Huh?” Jess had to physically shake her head to stop thinking about barfing. “What?”

 

“The occult. Contacting spirits. Tracking down ghouls. That sort of thing.”

 

“How do I feel? I don’t really, um…” Pretending to know about video games was one thing. This was a whole other can of worms.

 

“My ouija board isn’t going to freak you out, is it?” Abby cut through Jess’s waffling.

 

“Oh, that’s what you meant. Haha,” she laughed nervously. “No, that doesn’t bother me.”

 

“Okay, cool. Well, here we are.” Abby opened her door. It was a bit messy, and the bottom-of-the-sea wallpaper gave everything a gentle blue tinge. The telltale ouija board stood sat ringed in candles on an ornate table.

 

“I’ve got another controller around her somewhere. Abby climbed under her bed and started rummaging. “No wait! Sebastian took it and he never gave it back, that bastard. Oh, here we go. I took one of his as revenge. Not sure if he ever noticed.” She crawled back out holding a controller. It had a lot more buttons on it than the last one Jess had used.

 

“Okay, great! What are we playing?” Jess tried to mask her lack of knowledge with enthusiasm. 

 

“Journey of the Prairie King. It’s, like, unfairly hard...that or I’m just bad at it,” Abby sighed. “You played it?”

 

“Um, no, not that one. Must have missed that specific one, haha.”

 

“Well these buttons move you around, and these ones shoot in the different directions. Hit this button to use a stored power-up. Let’s do this!”

 

Plucky cowboy music started up, and Jess started moving a little character around on the screen.

 

“Here come the enemies!” Abby whooped. Her cowboy started shooting wildly. 

 

As Jess tried to figure out how to move and shoot at the same time, an enemy ran into her character and she blinked out of existence. 

 

“Whoops. You gotta dodge like—” Abby leaned in toward the screen and her character let out a barrage of bullets. As Jess watched her, her own character reappeared and was killed almost immediately.

 

“Off day?” Abby asked.

 

“Yeah, just gotta get the feel for it.” Jess flushed and started frantically clicking with her controller, hoping she got lucky. 

 

“Ooh! Shotgun! I just gotta…” Abby charged a group of enemies to get a blinking power-up and lost her character to a quick attack. “Damn it! Okay okay okay. There’s a wheel over there. Cover me and I’ll go grab it.”

 

“Huh? Oh, okay?” Jess positioned her character, just in time to die again. Abby’s blinked out a second later. 

 

The two managed to beat back another wave of enemies, but both died right at the end to the same monster. Just Abby was left. She got a good streak going, but without a second player she was overwhelmed. She glared at the game over screen for a second, then turned the TV off.

 

“I give up. I’ll never even get past the first level. We tried, I guess.”

 

“Yeah, sorry I wasn’t able to help that much. Maybe if it was some sort of farming game.”

 

“Ha. Yeah.” Abby tossed her controller to the ground a little harder than she needed to.

 

Jess mumbled something about needing to go check on her chickens and fled the room.


	7. Stardew Valley's a Weird Place

“Hey Jess! ...Jess? You okay?”

 

“hhhhhRAAAR!”

 

“Oh Yoba, what’s wrong?”

 

“Back—get back! It’s got teeth!”

 

“Teeth? What’s got teeth? Jess, what’s going on?” Jess was able to spare a glance over her shoulder. It was Abby, with a sword drawn.

 

“Sturgeon,” Jess gasped. It was hard to get any words out over her ragged breath.

 

“What? Surgeon? Is Harvey in there?” Abby charged to the shore of the lake and yelped as a large, long fish caught on Jess’s fishing rod broke the surface and snapped at her. “Oh! Sturgeon!”

 

“Rrrrrrr!” Jess cranked back on the reel as the fish leapt above the water again and brought it into the shallows.

 

“Do you need some help? What can I do?”

 

“Can you grab the...hrrgh! The fish bat? We need to stun it.”

 

“That’s this thing? Yoba, why does it have teeth? I don’t think sturgeon are supposed to have teeth!”

 

“Well I guess this one doesn’t know that. I’m gonna try to bring it in. Have you got the bat ready?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Okay, here we go.” Jess dug her heels into the ground and hauled. Her rod bent to the point that it started creaking. Abby planted her feet as well, bent her knees, and raised the bat above her head with excellent form.

 

“Haa!” She cried sharply, and brought the bat down with a  _ foosh _ . The tension on the line went slack.

 

Jess dropped the rod and fell back on the shore gulping for air. “That was...that was the hardest fish I’ve...ever actually caught. Thank you.”

 

“Yeah, no problem. You look completely wiped. Are you about to pass out?”

 

“I’ll be...okay. Just need to eat something.” Jess reached over for her backpack, but it was too far away. The algae she’d stuffed in her pocket was easy enough to reach, though. She pulled the wad out, stuffed it into her mouth, and started to chew.

 

“What  _ is  _ that?” Abby asked.

 

“Algae,” Jess mumbled. She just didn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed right now.

 

“Is it good?”

 

“No, not at all.” Jess grimaced as she swallowed the mouthful.

 

“Well you’re making me want to try it anyways. Got any leftovers?”

 

Jess pulled some more shreds from her pocket and handed them over, a dubious expression on her face.

 

Abby scraped them off her fingers into her mouth. Jess watched her frown, then her brow knit, then her nose screw up.

 

“Phweh!” Abby started frantically spitting the green sheds into the lake. “Ugh! That’s not food! It doesn’t taste like something you’re supposed to eat!”

 

“You get used to it,” Jess said. “It’s not as bad as the white algae you find fishing in the mines. That stuff is super slimy.”

 

“Do you ever eat normal food?”

 

“That’s funny, coming from the girl who eats rocks!”

 

“Just  _ some _ rocks,” Abby said with a grin.

 

Jess took another deep breath and got back up to her feet. She pulled some netting out of her backpack and started wrapping up the sturgeon.

 

“Thanks again for the help,” she said.

 

“Yeah, no problem. Whatcha planning on doing with it?” Abby asked.

 

“It’s...a...gift?” Jess still hadn’t found a good way to talk about the junimos with the Pelican Town villagers. With people likely not able to see them, and definitely not able to understand them, she’d been trying to keep them a secret. The problem was she was terrible at lying.

 

Abby seemed to notice. She crossed her hands and leaned in close. “A present? For who? You make it sound...scandalous. Is this for one of those weird help wanted posts that Haley puts up?” 

 

“What? No! It’s for some friends who...you don’t know.”

 

“Friends I don’t know? This is Pelican Town. There isn’t anyone I don’t know.”

 

“It’s, ugh. So you know about spirits, right?” Jess said, thinking back to Abby’s ouija board.

 

Abby’s whole face lit up. “Yeah! Is this some sort of sacrifice?”

 

“Not in, like, a dark magic sort of way. There are these forest spirits that the wizard helped me communicate with, and they want different gifts from the valley in return for fixing things up around town. That’s not...too weird, is it?” Jess focused on tying up the fix, avoiding eye contact.

 

“Too weird? One, you met the wizard.  _ Rad _ . I’ve only ever seen him through the window of the tower, or sometimes at festivals. Two, you’re communicating with forest spirits? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of happening in this boring old town! I’m so jealous. What are they like?”

 

“The spirits? They’re...bouncy and green, sorta chubby.”

 

“Oh.” The light in Abby’s face died down a little. “Guess nothing really looks the way you think it does huh? Hey, are you going to the center now? Lemme come with you! I want to see them!”

 

“Okay, just, you might not see anything. Or they might be shy and hide from you. I don’t know.”

 

“I figure that if I stick with you I’ll see  _ something _ interesting. You have all these crazy stories and I want to be a part of them! It’s almost like you’re making this stuff up.” Abby narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

 

“I’m not!” Now Jess had the energy to get flustered. “I’m so bad at lying!”

 

“Hmm, that’s what a liar would say!”

 

“I just don’t want to get your hopes up too much.”

 

“Well it’s too late for that. And I’ll blame you entirely if nothing happens...joking. I’m joking,” Abby had to add when she saw Jess’s look of uncertainty. “Let’s go.”

 

The community center was as creaky and eerie as always. Even if it weren’t for the actual magical spirits, it still felt like there was always something moving in the corner of your eye. It was also an absolute hotbox, baking in the summer sun. 

 

“And you’re just going to leave a fish in all this?” Abby asked dubiously, rubbing some sweat off her neck.

 

“The junimos come and take it...somewhere else. Just watch.” Jess knelt down in front of the busted aquarium and smoothed out the old scroll that lay in front of it. She fished the netted sturgeon out of her pack and laid it on the scroll.

 

There was a familiar chirp from behind her, and one of the bouncing yellow junimos hopped from the little hut and toward the fish.

 

Jess stood up and retreated to stand next to Abby, who seemed frozen in place.

 

“You okay?” she asked.

 

“I just don’t want to scare it off,” Abby whispered, her voice so quiet Jess barely heard her over the creaking floorboards. 

 

The junimo carted the sturgeon back to the hut with an ease that didn’t make sense, given its size. There were more chirpings from within, and what Jess guessed was the same junimo came bouncing back out of the hut. It vibrated, and with an actually unsettling squelching noise, it pulled something colorful out of its body and dropped it on the floor before disappearing back into the hut.

 

“What  _ is  _ that? Is that normal? What did it do?” Abby leaned forward to look at the object without budging.

 

“Oh, they sometimes give me gifts back. It’s really nice! It looks like this is a…” Jess walked over to it, “...a spinner of some sort? It’s too bad my rod is too simple to even use one. Maybe later.”

 

“Is it, like, magical?” Abby took the spinner from Jess and started inspecting it.

 

“Everything’s seemed normal to me. One time they left food, and I ate it and it seemed just fine.”

 

“What? You ate food that came out of one of those things? Don’t you know not to eat fairy food? There are, like, whole books with stories about the terrible things that happen to people who eat fairy food.”

 

“I mean, it was chocolate cake, though.”

 

The consternation dropped from Abby’s face. “Chocolate cake, you say?”

 

“Yeah. With the double dark chocolate frosting.”

 

“Well that changes everything. Man, now I want chocolate cake so bad!”

 

“I’ve still got some,” Jess offered.

 

“Like, with you?”

 

“Oh, no, I stashed it somewhere. It’s back at the farm, if you wanted to…” Jess realized that inviting someone back to her place for cake sounded like a date, and immediately cut herself off.

 

“Hmm, well that’s a ways out of town, and Dad’s been angry at me for getting home late, and I don’t really feel like getting yelled at. Maybe some other time.”

 

“Okay.” Jess tried not to let her disappointment show on her face. “I can keep a slice with me for the next time I see you instead.”

 

“What, are you just going to carry it with you?” Abby laughed.

 

Jess pointed to her backpack. “It’s really good at carrying things. Pretty much anything.”

 

Abby shook her head, a distant smile on her face. “Stardew Valley’s a weird place, huh?”


	8. Guilt Quilt

“ _Jess_!”

 

“ _Sam_!”

 

“You missed the Moonlight Jellies last night, you big lame-o.”

 

“I’m sorry. I was in the mines all day, and I was so tired I didn’t want to go all the way down to the beach at 10 p.m.”

 

“Unforgivable. I won’t accept your excuses.”

 

“How can I make it up to you? Maybe a pizza at the saloon?”

 

“That’ll have to wait. I’d got some band practice stuff to do.”

 

“Cool! So Goblin Destroyer is officially a thing?”

 

“Yup! Seb’s already here. We’re just waiting for Abby.”

 

“Do you, uh, mind if—want an audience? Mind if I listen in?”

 

“You’re the inspiration that got us together in the first place. Of course! You can listen in any time you want. C’mon.” Sam headed back into his house. It was a lot warmer inside. Fall had barely started and already the weather was getting chilly. “Who’da thought you were into noise rock too! I woulda thought you were more of a, y’know, country type?” Sam grinned and elbowed Jess.

 

“Don’t expect me to laugh at that! That barely counts as a joke!” Jess elbowed him back.

 

“That Jess?” came a muffled voice from inside Sam’s room. The door opened and Jess saw Sebastian, looking a little scruffy. It looked like he hadn’t dyed his hair in a while; his lighter roots were starting to show.

 

“Yup, it’s me. Hi.” Jess waved awkwardly, all the confidence she’d felt around Sam dropping away.

 

“You any good at playing drums?” Sebastian asked, flopping back on Sam’s bed. “You want to take over for Abby?”

 

“Oh come on,” Sam came into the room. “You were the one who wanted her in the first place!”

 

“I thought that she could be on time to practice when I did.”

 

“Sorry, I don’t know drums,” Jess said. “I’ve got a mini harp back at the farmhouse somewhere, but I haven’t played that thing in years.”

 

“Ooh, mini harp! Sebastian, you think the band could use a mini harp?” Sam asked.

 

“Not...really the sound we’re going for with ‘Goblin Destroyer’, I don’t think,” Sebastian responded. Guess we’re stuck waiting for Abby.”

 

“Uh, about Abby.” Jess rubbed her palms together and wiped them on her jeans. “Sebastian, you know her pretty well, right?”

 

“Yeah? We’ve been friends pretty much as long as I’ve lived here.”

 

“I saw on the community calendar that her birthday was coming up, and I was wondering if you knew what she liked, as, like, a gift.”

 

“Hmm, well, definitely don’t get her holly. She got really sick when she ate the berries as a kid, and still has a grudge against the stuff.”

 

“...Okay, I wasn’t planning on it.”

 

“She loves blackberry cobbler—oh, and spicy eel.”

 

“Oh, I’m not a very good cook, and I don’t have a kitchen.”

 

“Bet my mom could add one if you let her upgrade your house. She keeps complaining at dinner how much better she could make it look if you let her.”

 

“Oh yeah, I got her letter. I just...it sort of felt like it’s been so long that it’s awkward now.”

 

“ _Please._ I promise it won’t be awkward.” Sebastian looked more intense than Jess had ever seen him before. “If it’ll get her to stop bringing it up it’s worth it.”

 

“Okay, okay, I’ll go by your place tomorrow and ask.”

 

“Great! Okay.” 

 

Sam slung his guitar over his shoulder and played a cord. “Jeeeeess,” he sang, “gonna get a kitchen built. Jeeeeess, gonna...wear a kilt.”

 

“Liking the sound of that,” Sebastian said. “We could have a hit on our hands.”

 

“Eh, probably not. I can’t think of any other rhymes that work.” Sam twiddled away at the guitar strings.

 

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason it wouldn’t work.” Sebastian rolled his eyes and smiled.

 

“Ooh! What about, Jeeeeess, gonna feel lots of guilt.”

 

“Guilt? What for?” Jess knew it was just for the rhyme, but she couldn’t help racking her brain for some terrible thing that she’d done that she should feel terrible about.

 

“Dunno.” Sam shrugged. “Maybe in the song it turns out that while Robin’s renovating she finds a body buried under the house.”

 

“Whose body?”

 

“Like your twin or something.”

 

Jess was hit with a bolt of inspiration. “And! The body is wrapped up in a blanket, and the name of the song is…”

 

“No, please,” Sebastian said, realizing where she was going.

 

“ _Guilt Quilt_!” Sam and Jess shouted at the same time.

 

“Guilt quilt?” Abby asked from Sam’s door.

 

“ _There_ you are.” Sebastian said. “You took your sweet time getting here and now these chucklefucks are ruining the band. What took you so long?” 

 

Abby scowled. “Mom wouldn’t let me come until I’d helped her clean up the house, because apparently I don’t do enough and I need to ‘pull my weight.’ She and Dad are just mad that I don’t like to cook and clean like a good little girl. It’s bullshit.” She kicked Sam’s dresser.

 

“Hey, why don’t you take your aggression out on the drums instead of my stuff,” Sam suggested. “Sebastian, the keyboard ready to go?”

 

“Sure is.” 

 

“Okay! Look undead, my ghouls! We’ve got an audience!” Sam hit another cord and let it reverberate around the room.

 

“Oh!” Abby saw Jess, sitting by the bookcase. She suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Uh, hey, Jess. Didn’t see you there.”

 

“Hi!”

 

“Okay,” Sam said, “let’s start with Creeping Decay and go from there. I had time to practice my solo over the past few days, so the whole thing should be a lot more solid!”

 

Jess pulled her knees into her chest and let the discordant wave of music rumble through her whole body. She’d always found something satisfying about the distortion and discordance of noise rock. Sure, it didn’t sound pretty, but it wasn’t supposed to. Listening to it made her feel powerful, and like she was in on a secret that most people didn’t understand.

 

She closed her eyes and started quietly growling along with the guitar.

 

“What did you think?” Abby asked as the practice ended. Sebastian had to hurry home for dinner, and Sam was in the kitchen making himself a glass of hot salt water to gargle. All the lyrical screaming that he’d been doing had destroyed his throat.

 

“I liked it,” Jess said with a smile. “I liked the way I could feel the music rumbling everything around me. I don’t get that when I just listen to CDs.”

 

“Yeah, it’s best when it’s rattling the windows, isn’t it? We’re lucky Sam’s mom didn’t come in and scold us this time—or Haley next door. One time she threw something at the window and cracked it because apparently we were being too loud. But what are we gonna do? We can’t cage our art!” She hit one of the cymbals for emphasis.

 

“So, hey,” Jess glanced around to make sure that they were alone, “y’know how you can eat some rocks?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Well I found this thing called lemon stone that, uh, the museum curator…”

 

“Gunther.”

 

“...that Gunther told me about. He said that the dwarves would powder it and eat it, and, I mean,” she reached into an outer pocket of her back and retrieved a chestnut-sized orange crystal, “it looks delicious.” The fine yellow filaments that covered the stone made it look almost fuzzy.

 

“It _does_ ,” Abby agreed. “Don’t mind if I do!” She plucked the stone from Jess’s hand and popped it into her mouth.

 

“Is it...good?”

 

“It’s not as fast as with quartz. Hang on, I think it’s starting to dissolve a bit, uh—”

 

Jess saw Abby swallow, then wince, then her eyes get wide.

 

“Hey friends,” Sam whispered, reentering the room with his glass, “what do we want to do now?”

 

“Jess, you need to take me to the clinic,” Abby said in an overly calm voice.

 

“What’s going on?” Sam’s raspy whisper was nearly lost in the commotion of Jess pulling Abby out from behind the drumset and running for the door.

 

“She—oh Yoba—she swallowed a stone!” Jess gasped. Then she and Abby charged through front door and were gone.

 

Sam stared at door, now swinging gently in the fall breeze. “What?”


	9. A Stillness in the Rain

Jess stirred her cup of coffee and sighed. She’d been coming into the saloon every day in the hopes that one of...Geoff? Ralph? His name was some single-syllable word—that one of his daily specials would be spicy eel or cobbler. No luck so far, and Jess didn’t feel right just leaving without buying something, so she’d get a cup of coffee because it was cheap and hot.

 

She blew into the cup to make the bubbles swirl, then rested her nose on the rim to let the steam warm it up. She sunk into thought. Robin had renovated her house surprisingly fast, but even with her nice new kitchen she didn’t have the ingredients or skills to make anything nice—nothing worthy of being a present, certainly. She mostly just fried eggs and made toast.

 

She’d figured Geoff/Ralph was her best bet to get something special, but now she was starting to doubt that. What  _ was _ his name? Jess furrowed her brow at the cheerful man cleaning drinking glasses. Buster? That seemed closer, but she was pretty sure it was one syllable.

 

The saloon door creaked open behind her.

 

_ Oh great _ . Jess planned out her visits to avoid the evening crowd—well, crowd in the Pelican Town sense of the word.

 

“Hey there, stoner,” a gruff voice said from behind her. 

 

Jess hunched further into her coffee cup when she heard it. It was the mean guy who lived on the ranch to the south of her farm. She usually saw him in the morning when she headed into Cindersnap Forest, but he was always rude when she worked up the courage to make small talk with him, so she’d quickly learned to leave him alone.

 

“What do you mean?” she mumbled, still hunched into her cup.

 

“I just heard about the whole eating the rock thing. Fuckin’ hilarious.” 

 

Jess let out something like a whimper and put her hands over her face.

 

“No teasing now, Shane. You want your usual?” Geoff/Ralph/Buster pulled a beer mug from the shelf. Was his name Ross?

 

“Make it two. Rough day at work. And I wasn’t teasing.” Jess heard his voice getting closer to her. “But I do gotta know, what’s the story behind the rock eating? Was it just a dare?”

 

“No, it was—” Jess started frantically drinking coffee to stall for time, “—uh, haha, nevermind, you’re right. It was a dare.” She heard someone sit down on the bar stool next to her.

 

“You alright?” Shane asked.

 

“Uh huh. Coffee just makes me jittery.” Jess took another two gulps.

 

“Not to be rude, but you’re a real weirdo,” he said. Jess looked over at him as Geoff/Ralph/Buster/Ross slid two mugs of beer to him. He produced two straws from the pocket of his hoodie, popped them into the drinks and started to drink both at once. He leaned back on his stool, let out a loud  _ URRRP,  _ and thumped the half-drained mugs onto the counter. “Yup, that’ll kill the liver,” he said with a satisfied sigh.

 

The door swung open again and Jess saw Geoff/Ralph/Buster look up to it and say, “Hey there, Pam.”

 

“Howdy, Gus,” the voice from the door replied.

 

“Gus!” Jess said to herself. She’d been close...kind of.

 

“Yes? Can I get you something else?” Gus asked. Jess realized she’d spoken louder than she’d meant to.

 

“Oh, uuuh, a refill on coffee please?”

 

Gus took her mug with a smile. “Just make sure the caffeine doesn’t keep you up tonight.”

 

“Oh, haha,” Jess nervously drummed her fingers on the counter. “I never have any trouble sleeping. So much to do on the farm, it tires me right out. Hahaha.”

 

“You want me to order you something stronger?” Shane asked. “Maybe a whiskey...on the rocks?”

 

Jess scowled at him then buried herself in the fresh cup of coffee.

 

“Aww, don’t give me that look.” Shane leaned into his own mugs. “This is the first interesting thing to happen since last year when someone stole the mayor’s truck in the middle of the night, drove it out to the desert, filled it up with sand, and drove it back.”

 

“If I buy you another beer will you leave me alone?” Jess asked, her eyes still fixed on her mug.

 

“Hmm,” Shane scratched his stubbly cheek and looked at his nearly empty glasses. “Yeah, that’s a deal.”

 

Jess counted out the money for her coffees and a beer. “Thank you, Gus,” she said, promising herself that she’d remember his name this time. She drained the rest of her coffee, burning her tongue, and then booked it for the door of the saloon. It was nice to know, at least, that if Shane ever bothered her in the future she could buy him a beer to shut him up.

 

***

 

The day of Abby’s birthday Jess was forced to accept the fact that if she wanted to make her something special, she was going to have to do it herself. She had the new kitchen that Sebastian’s mom had kindly stocked with some essentials, and she’d found an eel that seemed as fresh as they came in the trash can in front of Sam’s house, and she still had a few hot peppers left over from what she’d grown in the summer, so supposedly she had everything she needed to make the dish.

 

“Okay, okay.” She laid the eel out on a cutting board and found a knife in the cupboard. “I just gotta…” She held the knife out around the head area and frowned. “Maybe I’ll start with the peppers.

 

She chopped up pepper, garlic, and onion and added it to oil, then returned to the eel.

 

“Definitely gotta take off the head,” she muttered. She brought her knife down hesitantly, and the eel slipped out from under it with a squelch and fell onto the floor.

 

She picked it up, rinsed it off, and tried again. The knife got part way through eel, but got caught on something.  _ The bone? Do eels even have bones? _ Another minute of cutting and the only result was the eel falling on the floor again.

 

Jess coughed, and her eyes started to sting. “I’m not getting emotional about this,” she told herself firmly. She coughed again. Her throat stung too. “Aah! The peppers!”

 

The garlic was black and the peppers were letting off acrid smoke. Jess fumbled to turn the heat down while covering her eyes. She threw open a window and gasped for air. She wiped her eyes and looked back at the eel. It was small enough that it would fit in the pan coiled up. Maybe cooking it would...loosen the inside up and make it easier to cut?

 

She tossed it into the pan, placed a lid on it, and left to sit on the steps.

 

A foggy rain had rolled in in the morning, and it was making all of Old Stone Farm look blurry and surreal. The wind blew a curtain of cold rain into Jess’s face and she shivered. Today was the perfect day to stay inside with a cup of hot cranberry water—a recipe that she’d come up with that involved dropping some cut up fresh cranberries and a couple spoonfuls of sugar into hot water. Maybe Abby would prefer that instead.

 

Maybe Abby wouldn’t mind if the present was belated. It’s not like she was expecting this. Sam and Sebastian were, though, Jess realized with a sinking feeling. And Sam at least would want to know all about it. He’d give her more trouble than Shane did if he found out that she’d given up.

 

Jess sighed and went back inside.

 

***

 

“It’s Farmer Jess! Oh, are you alright?” Pierre asked as Jess lurched into his shop, muddy and shivering. She was clutching a covered bowl of mutilated eel bits in a peppery pool of oil with blackened seasoning covering everything.

 

“I’m...fine. Is Abigail home?”

 

“Hmm.” Pierre set the box he was restocking back on the shelf. He still looked a little concerned at the sight of her. “I was her head out with her flute. Not sure where she goes. She’s supposed to be home by 8 every evening, but she’s often out later.”

 

“Flute…” Jess thought back to when she’d been exploring the train station after the earthquake in the summer, and she’d followed the sound of lilting music and found Abby playing her flute under a tree by the mountain lake. She'd had her head thrown back and she swayed with the song as she played it. Jess had quietly leaned against a nearby tree, not wanting to interrupt her, and had just listened for almost half an hour. 

 

“Jess?” Pierre asked.

 

Jess blinked, then gave him a polite wave, spun on her heel and headed back out the door.

 

The trek up the mountain was rough, and be the time Jess reached Sebastian’s house she knew the eel had gone cold. She peeled up the lid to make sure the stuff at least looked okay just as the wind shook a shower of collected water from the branches above down onto her and into her bowl.

 

Jess looked into the cold, soupy mix, now garnished with a maple leaf, and let out an indistinct yell of disappointment and frustration.

 

“Uh, hello?” Jess looked up to see Abby a ways away, barefoot, hair plastered to her shoulders, holding her flute. She had a little lantern set out next to her, and despite the rain, there were a few fireflies dancing around it.

 

“Hi...it’s me.” Jess shuffled over toward her.

 

“Jess! Why are you out here in the rain?”

 

“I was, uh, looking for you,” Jess sighed.

 

“Oh yeah? Well come get under this tree with me, you’re getting soaked.”

 

Jess squelched her way over and slumped against the trunk. “Happy birthday,” she mumbled. 

 

“Oh, I guess it is! Is that what you came all the way out here for?”

 

“That and to give you this.” Jess passed the cold eel up to Abby and scowled at the mud.

 

“Uh, thanks. It’s...nice!” Jess heard the hesitance in her voice. “What, um, is it?”

 

“It’s supposed to be spicy eel, but I did a awful job cooking it and it got ruined by the rain and now it’s just terrible.” Jess hugged her knees hard.

 

“No way! You tried to make me eel? Not even Mom’s tried to make that for me before. It’s supposed to be really hard. Did you cook it all the way? Apparently the blood is poisonous unless you cook it.”

 

“Yeah, I cooked it,” Jess said, feeling suddenly relieved for accidentally leaving it on the stove for too long.

 

There was a pause, and some sounds of chewing. “It’s so bad!” Abby eventually said. She swallowed and then laughed. “I’d have thought that you were doing this intentionally!”

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

“I like the spice, though. What kind of pepper did you use?”

 

“Stuff that I grew on the farm.”

 

“Delightful. And where’d you find the recipe? I’ve never been able to find one—other than Gus’s recipes, and unless I want to make a cauldron of the stuff I don’t want to go by his.”

 

“I just winged it. I didn’t realize that cooking eel could be so difficult. It—the suckers!” Jess leapt up frantically.

 

“...What?” Abby slowed her chewing and knit her eyebrows together.

 

“I didn’t get the suckers off! They could get stuck to your throat and…” Jess petered out and blinked several times. Abby blinked back. “...Octopus. I’m thinking of octopus,” Jess said sheepishly.

 

The two girls leaned back against the tree, snickering. The wind picked up behind them, but the trunk blocked the brunt of it.

 

Abby closed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. She turned to look at the lake. “It’s...impossible to describe this feeling,” she had a strange smile on her face, “watching the curtains of rain whisper above a silent lake.”

 

“Is that...what your music does? Describe those feelings?”

 

“Yes! Yes exactly!” Abby turned back to Jess excitedly. “Words aren’t always so good at expressing things like this, but my flute always can—that is for me, at least. Do you play music at all?”

 

“Actually,” Jess bit her lip to hold in a smile. She shrugged off her pack and pulled the harp from it.

 

“Hey! A mini-harp! You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Jess? You picked the perfect day to carry that with you.”

 

The smile escaped onto Jess’s face. She decided not to mention that she’d been carrying the thing in her bag ever since she first heard Abby’s flute playing, just hoping for an opportunity like this one. “Want to pick your song back up? I’ll join in when I find, y’know, a part for myself.”

 

Abby nodded and raised her flute. The gentle, aching tune that melded with the patter of rain immediately raised goose bumps all over Jess’s scalp.

 

She had a couple of false starts, trying to join the song, but Abby wasn’t bothered by it. Eventually, she found the place for a steady strum, and as they continued she let herself dance her fingers up and down the strings beneath the flute notes. After several minutes their tempo slowed, and thunder crackled above as if ending the song.

 

“Wow,” Abby whispered, eyes wide. “That’s the best this song has ever sounded.”

 

“I’ve got goose bumps all over,” Jess whispered back.

 

“Maybe you’re just cold. Have some eel; the heat will warm you up.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Why are we whispering?”

 

“I don’t know.” Jess placed a piece of eel in her mouth. “There’s this...stillness, and I don’t want to break it.”

 

Fireflies flittered effortlessly around the raindrops, their lights glinting off lily pads in the lake. And with them flew one large, dark moth.


	10. The Oracle

Jess was hiding behind the fishing tent. She was disappointed in herself for hiding, but the Stardew Valley fair was a lot bigger and more raucous than she’d been prepared for, and with all her friends preoccupied with the games, she’d found herself scootching for the nearest hidey hole. Her grange display hadn’t gone well, mostly because she didn’t know what a ‘grange’ was supposed to be. Apparently the mayor wasn’t looking for all the cool treasures that she’d dug up around the valley. The skeletal hands especially seemed to freak people out.

 

_ I thought I was better than this. I thought I had changed.  _ She kicked a hay bale.  _ Is it really that hard to just be around people?  _ She brought her head back to give it a firm smack against  the tentpost, hoping that she’d bludgeon the fear out of herself. 

 

The smack was a little harder than intended, making the whole tent shudder, and Jess let out a tiny yelp.

 

“Hello? Is someone there?” A voice came from inside the tent. 

 

Jess shot up and practically threw herself into a bush to get out of sight. She scrambled over to the fence by Sam’s house and used it to cover her retreat down to the southern fair activities.

 

The wizard stood, arms crossed, looking over the fair-goers impassively. Next to him in one the gaudy circus tents a lady in a blue robe sat hunched over a crystal ball. Jess realized she was set up in the graveyard. That felt a little...disrespectful.

 

The lady’s eyes fastened onto Jess. “You there.” Her voice was deeper and raspier than expected. “My crystal ball tells me it has things that it must tell you. Come.”

 

“Oh, I, um, uh, that, haha—not really my sort of—no thank you!” Jess sputtered. She prepared to flee again.

 

“Jess.” The wizard’s voice stopped her. “Welwick and I have known each other for a long time...she is a remarkable diviner, and a good friend. I recommend you listen to what she has to tell you.” His grave tone was somewhat undercut by the clown Jess could see over his shoulder honking an oversized horn.

 

“Okay?” Jess approached Welwick cautiously. Why was the wizard so serious about this? It was just a circus performance like everything else here. Maybe he just acted this way about everything. Or maybe he was in on it! Convincing everyone to give her money and then splitting it with her? Oh, whatever. It was only 100g. Jess placed the money into the open jaws of a fake skull.

 

Welwick began to swirl her hands around the ball, wafting the smells of incense and burnt herbs and...strong alcohol out toward Jess.

 

“Ah yes…” she said. “My crystal ball is swirling with visions of your future, young one.” She cupped her hands over the ball and squinted at it. “Ah,” she said knowingly. “I see you and a young man, Sam, sharing a pizza, smiling. Hmm, you seem to be close.”

 

“Oh, we’re just—”

 

“Now! I see you with another young man—Shane?” Welwick’s eyebrows quirked suggestively and Jess couldn’t stop herself from blushing with embarrassment. “He is asleep and you are beside him. It seems you are—how interesting, the ball moves on its own.” Welwick hunched even further over it so that her nose almost touched the glass. “There is something coming,” she said in a singsongy tone. “I see darkness. There is a—no, wait. Ah! There it is again! A light. Eerie. Blue. I hear the fluttering winds. There is...there is something dreadful bearing down on you from the dark.” Welwick’s brow furrowed deeply. “The crystal ball has gone dim. That’s all I can do for you, young one.” She straightened up to eye Jess over.

 

“What...did it mean? That last part?” Jess asked.

 

“It was...unclear. Uncharacteristically so. Now keep in mind that the future is not set in stone—don’t lose sleep over any of this. But on the other hand, avoid dark places if you can.”

 

“O-okay…” Jess wandered away from the tent, confused and a little concerned. Welwick bent back over the ball. There was a pale green smudge of power that had appeared on it during the reading, and it wasn’t wiping away.

 

“What was that?” The wizard asked quietly, watching Jess leave.

 

“You were right,” Welwick said. She spit on the orb and rubbed it with her sleeve. “There is certainly something wrong here. The future is shrouded from me, trying to show through, but hidden by something. Keep an eye on her, Rasmodius. Keep an eye on all the townsfolk—I sensed some intertwined fates.”


	11. An Invitation

“Hi Jess!”

 

“Hi Sam! What are you doing out in Cindersnap forest?”

 

“Oh, just enjoying the last week of fall before things get too cold to be outside. What are  _ you  _ doing? You look all beat up. Did a tree fall on you?”

 

“Haha, good one. No, I just discovered this crazy place tucked away over behind the wizard’s tower! There was this big log blocking it, and it took me a good half an hour to chop all the way through it, but yeah! There were some interesting yellow mushrooms that I found! And a bunch of slimes. They kind of surprised me and mobbed me a bit while I tried to get my sword out.” Jess rubbed at the welts on her arms.

 

“Aw, no way! You got the secret woods open again?”

 

“Oh, you know about it?”

 

“Yeah! Emily showed it to me and Sebastian years ago. We used to have bonfires back there and try to guess what the weird old statue was for. Then Emily found out we weren’t using a fire ring and said that was dangerous, and then there was a storm that brought the tree down on the path, and Emily thought that meant the forest was upset about the bonfires and wanted us to leave, so she wouldn’t let us go back.”

 

“Oh…” Jess thought of the stumps she’d chopped and the mushrooms she’d picked willy nilly. “Do you think she’ll be mad at me if she finds out? Will the...forest?” She glanced up at the pine trees around her.

 

“Oh, nah, it’s been years now. Just no more big old fires back there for us. Maaan, I miss those, though. This is the perfect weather for a bonfire, too.” Sam heaved a big sigh. “Yoba, I could go for a toasted marshmallow right now.”

 

“What if...we had a bonfire at my farm?” Jess suggested.

 

Sam broke out into a smile. “No way! Really?”

 

“Sure? Why not?”

 

“I don’t know, we all just got the feeling that you didn’t really want anyone coming over.”

 

“What? What gave you that idea? You know you’re talking to  _ me _ , right?” 

 

“Yeah, just…” Sam scratched at the back of his head uncomfortably, “...you keep to yourself a lot of the time, and you barely ever talk about the farm with is. We just sort of assumed you didn’t want us getting in the way, or something—actually, Abigail thought you were part of a blood cult and were using the land for dark, secret ritual, but you know how she is.”

 

“Well geez, I wish you’d said something,” Jess huffed. “Tell everyone to come by tomorrow evening. Oh! You can invite, uh, y’know, your friend, the red-head?”

 

“Leah?” Sam frowned and glanced over to the little woodsy cabin not too far away.

 

“No, I see you with her sometimes,” Jess said helplessly.

 

“Robin? Sebastian’s mom?” Sam looked even more perplexed.

 

“She, she teaches your brother! At the museum!”

 

“OH! Penny! Huh, I guess I don’t think of her as a red-head. Yeah, I’ll see if she can make it.”

 

“Also, I’m gonna, uh, invite...Shhhaun.”

 

“You mean Shane? The drunk asshole?”

 

“Yeah, him.”

 

“Nooo,” Sam flung his head back dramatically. “He’s a drunk asshole! He always grumbles rude things when we play pool, and he gives me dirty looks when he sees me grooving to my music at JojaMart. He’s gonna ruin our awesome bonfire.”

 

Jess bit her lip and looked over to the pier jutting out into the forest lake. “I’m a little bit...worried...about him. He kinda opened up to me the other night—I think cause he was so drunk—and it doesn’t seem like he’s doing that well.

 

Sam sighed. “Okay, okay, invite him. But you have to promise me another bonfire if he ruins this one by being a drunk asshole.”

 

“Okay, deal.” Jess rolled her eyes and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Be seeing you!”

 

She started back toward the farm, the pieces of hardwood clunking together in her pack.  _ I’ll need to cut down some trees for firewood and leave it to dry out tonight. Oh, I should check the weather to make sure it won’t rain! Then I’ve gotta go to Pierre’s to pick up s’mores supplies. This’ll be fun! _

 

As she thought that, Jess passed the ranch and looked up at Old Stone Farm in front of her. She chewed her lip. It looked...overgrown, and not in the aesthetic sense that she’d been going for. Tall grass falling over the simple stone path she’d laid, weeds crawling over the large boulders she still hadn’t gotten around to pickaxeing, a thicket of trees so dense she had trouble walking through it, the ruins of the old greenhouse, and over by her farmhouse her patches of pumpkins and cranberries laid out haphazardly. 

 

The only real neat part of the farm was the pasture that fenced in Jess’s coop, and now her barn. She decided to go check on the little calves she’d bought from Marnie. They were more work than keeping chickens were, but Jess had just recently figured out how to make a cheese press, and the promise of a fresh slice of cheese melted over some pan-toasted bread was all the motivation she need to buy the two.

 

Jess swung herself over the pasture fence and frowned as the wood creaked under her. She’d probably need to repair it soon. Ugh. Repairing fences was easily her least-favorite aspect of farm work. Well, that could wait till later.

 

“Clover? Alfalfa?” she called softly, opening up the barn door. Two tiny cows with big, glassy eyes blinked up at her. “Oooh, you are just the cutest little babies.” Jess felt a jab of anxiety leap from her stomach to her throat. “You are little babies who totally rely on me to care for you. Grow up soon, okay?” She gave Alfalfa a chin scritch, and the calf leaned her whole weight into it. “Aww, alright. I’ll admit that you’re pretty cute as is. Okay, I’m gonna go write a letter to Shane now.”

 

***

 

Jess’s hair smelled like smoke—so did her clothes, and her eyes were stinging with it. The last time she’d made a fire like this was on a camping trip with her dad in high school. This was bringing back all sorts of memories.

 

It was only 2 pm, but Jess was already more or less prepared for the bonfire bash. Logs to sit on were place around the fire ring, and logs to burn were piled behind them. She was letting the fire burn down to nice, hot embers for now so that they’d be good for roasting the marshmallows and the fresh apples that Jess had picked in the morning. 

 

A sharp breeze blew orange and red leaves from the trees around the farm to dance crazily in the sky. Jess shivered and smiled. Fall was exhilarating here in Stardew Valley.

 

“Well,” she said to herself, “nothing left to do but wait.” She took a seat on one of the logs and stoked the fire. And with her mind no longer busy, she started worrying almost immediately.

 

_ What if they think the farm looks ugly? Yoba, I should have taken some time to plant all my crops in neat rows! Lazy! What if the wood doesn’t burn well? What if this isn’t like what Sam wanted? What if Shane really is an asshole? _

 

_ What if no one shows up? _

 

“Okay!” Jess jumped to her feet. “There’s gotta be something left to do.” Her gaze landed on the tree thicket. “Yeah, how about I thin that out a bit?” She grabbed her axe.


	12. The Bonfire

“Helloooo? What’s up with the ghost farm? Maybe you were right about this being for a cult, Abby.”

 

“I knew it.”

 

Jess came stumbling out of the thicket waving at the three friends who were waiting by her front steps. “Hi guys,” she panted. “Sorry, I lost track of time a little. Was cutting down trees…” She glanced back at the thicket.

 

“Trees? Plural?” Sebastian asked. “How big of a bonfire do you think this is gonna be?” 

 

“The  _ biggest _ !” Sam shouted, then he saw the fire ring and deflated a little. “Aww, is that all?”

 

“It’s gotta be smaller for cooking, then we can pile wood on. Hey, how—?”

 

“Smaller for cooking?” Sam interrupted before Jess could get her question out. “What are you talking about?”

 

“Do you really want black marshmallows?” Sebastian asked.

 

“Uhh, yeah? Marshmallows taste best burnt!”

 

“Um, hey, do you guys—?”

 

Jess was cut off again as Abby cried, “PUMPKINS!” She took off toward the field so fast that her scarf came loose and dropped on Jess’s boot. “Look how big they are!”

 

“Do you want one?” Jess asked. “I was planning on harvesting them tomorrow, so they’re ready.”

 

“Uh, yes?” Abby said. She dropped to her hands and knees and started rooting around for the perfect pumpkin. “Yes! Yes! This one!” She got back to her feet cradling a small, lumpy pumpkin. “I’ll name her...Cleaver Teeth!” she said.

 

Abby had an even stronger earthy smell after digging in the dirt, and Jess pulled her scarf up over her cheeks in case she started turning red. “Why Cleaver Teeth?” she asked.

 

“I’m gonna carve her into an intense hag face with all sorts of gnarly teeth! I’m so jealous. You get to carve  _ all  _ these suckers.”

 

“I’ve never actually carved a pumpkin before,” Jess admitted. “I just...sell them.”

 

Abby shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. “Inexcusable. I demand that we carve pumpkins immediately.”

 

“No! Bonfire first!” Sam said.

 

“Yeah, I’m hungry,” Sebastian agreed.

 

“Um, yeah, okay,” Jess said. “I’ve got marshmallows and graham crackers and chocolate for s’mores, and fresh apples. Just, find your own sticks for roasting.”

 

The four trooped over to the fire and started choosing sticks and marshmallows, Sam managing to cram nine of them onto his. 

 

As Jess glanced toward the south of the farm, she saw Shane approaching slowly. She waved and turned back to look at Sam. “Okay, he’s coming. Be nice.”

 

“Sure,  _ Mom _ .” Sam pulled his blackening marshmallows out of the fire and bit into one for emphasis. “OW! That’s really hot.”

 

“That’s what you get. Hey Shane!” She called now that he was in earshot.

 

“Uh, hey. I brought…” he help up a bulky plastic bag with the Joja logo on it, “...these?”

 

“Glad you could make it. What are those?”

 

Shane frowned at her for a second. It was a fair reaction, honestly. Until a couple days ago Jess had made it a point to avoid him and all his rude jokes and mean comments. She hoped this didn’t seem too transparent.

 

“Frozen bag of pepper poppers,” Shane said. “Thought we could cook them over the fire or something. I found them in the bag room and Joja and figured they wouldn’t be missed.” He looked around. “No chairs? Alright, great.” He sat down on one of the logs with a groan.

 

“What back room at Joja?” Sam asked. “I didn’t realize we could take food with us.”

 

Shane snorted. “We aren’t supposed to, but Morris is incompetent and the other stocker doesn’t care, and even if someone does find out, I don’t give a fuck about getting fired.” He tore the bag open, looked around, and then started trying to force one of the frozen peppers onto a stick. He held the popper out over the coals with a glum look on his face. “This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?”

 

“Doesn’t have to,” Sam said. He reached back and tossed two more logs onto the fire. Shane wasn’t able to move his stick out of the way and the popper got snagged and fell down into the coals. “Bonfire!”

 

“Fuckin’...watch it, Sam,” Shane grumbled, stabbing another popper onto his stick.

 

“Oh no! We’re not ready for more wood!” Jess tried to pull the logs back out of the fire, but they were already too hot. “Everything’s gonna burn now.”

 

“Eh, that’s fine,” Shane said.

 

“Yeah, burnt is great!” Sam added.

 

Sebastian shrugged and smiled.

 

“I like the extra heat,” Abby said. “Just the thing we need with the sun going down, I think.”

 

Everyone grabbed more marshmallows, apples, and pepper poppers and started to cook and burn them over the growing flames. They shared some idle chitchat, gossip about Marnie and Lewis, excitement about the upcoming Spirit’s Eve, and what to do now that winter was around the corner.

 

“Your farm’s cool,” Sebastian said.

 

“Oh! Haha, thanks!” Jess stuffed an apple into her mouth.

 

“It’s, uh, a lot more foresty than I was expecting,” Shane said.

 

“Yeah, it takes a lot of time to clear everything out, and there’s a whole lot of land.”

 

“I’m glad it’s going slow,” Abby said. “I have so many good memories of exploring everything here while it was overgrown.”

 

“Good memories of what? Stubbing your toes on rocks and getting torn up by thorns?” Sam asked. “This place was a dump before Jess got here!”

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know!”

 

“Did, uh, you ever see any giant mushrooms?” Jess asked.

 

Abby regarded her with pursed lips for a second. “How big we talking?”

 

“Pretty, ahaha, pretty big. I found it over there earlier this afternoon.”

 

Sam leapt to his feet. “You’ve known about a giant mushroom this whole time and you never said anything? And you call us your friends?”

 

“I was trying to—earlier when you—oh nevermind. Just follow me.” Jess got up and led the group over into the thinned out copse. “Here we are. It’s, yeah. It was just like that when I saw it today,” she said.

 

“Huh,” said Sebastian.

 

“Whoa,” said Sam.

 

“When you said a big mushroom,” Abby craned her neck, eyebrows raised, “this isn’t exactly what I expected.”

 

“This thing is the size of a fuckin tree!” Shane shook his head. “Is weird shit like this just attracted to you or is it something that you  _ do _ ?”

 

Jess shrugged helplessly. “It’s not something I try to do!”

 

“Besides feeding rocks to your friend,” Shane said out of the corner of his mouth.

 

“Watch it,” Jess responded in a whispered hiss, “or I’ll let everyone know about the dances that I saw you do to the pop music at JojaMart.”

 

Shane narrowed his eyes and bit into a pepper popper.

 

“What are you saying?” Sam asked.

 

“Oh! Just that I think it might be spreading—the mushroom. Like, uh, look at these weird little seedlings.” Jess kicked at a spongy white sprout shooting out of the ground.

 

“Uh oh,” Abby said. She knocked on the trunk of the mushroom a few times. “Looks like you might have an infestation on your hands.”

 

“What should I do about it?”

 

“Probably cut it down?” Sebastian suggested.

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” Sam said, grabbing Jess by the arms. “And then we’ll put it on the bonfire.”

 

Jess rubbed the back of her neck and frowned up at the mushroom. “That seems like a—” 

 

“—a great idea!” Abby interrupted. “I can’t think of anything more cool than burning a giant mushroom at the end of fall. It’s so witchy!”

 

“I dunno, seems bad to me,” Shane said, but without much force. He seemed more interested in his popper.

 

“I’ve burnt mushrooms before, and it’s been fine,” Sebastian said. “I’d love to see if this could turn the flame a cool color.

 

“I...guess we could try a little and see how it does,” Jess said. She hefted her axe and started swinging at the trunk.

 

“Woah, geez!”

 

Jess glanced behind her to see that everyone had stepped back. “Sorry,” she said, “did you get a chip to the face?”

 

“No,” Abby said, “I guess we just didn’t realize how...strong you were. That’s, uh, pretty intense, haha.”

 

Jess looked down at the divot chopped into the mushroom, It was pretty sizable. “I guess I’ve had a lot of practice, and I have a nicer axe than most.”

 

“Well keep chopping away, lumberjack!” Sam said. “Just make sure that it doesn’t fall on us.”

 

“I’ll make it land on just you,” Jess said, taking another swing.

 

“My mom will be so angry to learn that I died because of shrooms.”

 

“I mean, you’re the lead singer in a band,” Sebastian said. “Story checks out, right?”

 

“Aaand timber!” Jess shouted as she brought her axe down one last time and felt the mushroom start creaking and fall away from her. It landed with a loud, hollow thump and a fog of spores that poofed up from the impact.

 

“Great! Now just chop it up into logs and we’ll roll it over to the fire,” Sam said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the scene that inspired me to start writing this fic in the first place! This image by Keioneka got in my head and wouldn't leave: https://keioneka.tumblr.com/post/166866871485/its-autumn-theres-no-better-time-for-sipping


	13. Mushroom Fumes and Witches' Brooms

Jess chopped, and everyone else rolled. By the time she was finished, she could see the bonfire roaring into the sky from the other side of the farm. Sam evidently had decided against trying just a little.

 

“At least don’t roast any food over that now,” Jess said as she returned to the fire. 

 

Sam gave her an exasperated look. He was almost finished spearing what looked half of a bag of marshmallows onto a branch.

 

“C’mooon!” he said. “I want to make this bonfire a special one.” He squashed a final marshmallow onto the stick.

 

“It...just doesn’t seem safe,” Jess said, without much conviction. 

 

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her with a big grin.

 

“Will you?” Abby asked.

 

“Yeah! Once I ate a whole bowl of cereal with curdled milk and never felt bad from it once.”

 

“ _Why_ would you do that?” Shane asked. He’d produced a can of beer from somewhere and was sipping from it, deeply.

 

“I didn’t notice. I was real sleepy. My mom sorta freaked out when she realized and rushed me over to Harvey right away, but he didn’t find a thing wrong with me!” Sam thrust his ’mallow-branch into the fire. It exploded into flame almost immediately. That wasn’t normal was it? Maybe it was just because the bonfire was so _hot._ Jess pushed her sitting log back several feet. It felt like her eyebrows were about to crisp off.

 

“I’m surprised at how well this stuff burns,” Sebastian said.

 

Jess nodded. “Too bad it didn’t turn the flame cool colors like you wanted.”

 

Abby frowned. “Wait, you mean you guys don’t see it?”

 

“See what?”

 

“The fire...I keep seeing this pale green flickering, in and out, right down in the coals. Are my eyes playing tricks on me?”

 

Everyone crowded as close to the fire as they could get without their faces melting off to look.

 

“Y’know,” Sebastian said, “I see something kind of like that, but it’s purpley for me.”

 

Shane shook his head. “It’s just fire, guys.”

 

Jess blinked several times. The fire wavered and blurred in front of her, almost warping. “This has...not...happened—this is weird, I think.” She rubbed her eyes.

 

“Yeah, it’s sort of like…” Abby trailed off.

 

Sam stuffed two marshmallows into his mouth and looked around at his friends. “You guys are looking weird,” he said.

 

“I think there might have been something weird about this mushroom,” Sebastian said.

 

“Yeah, no shit,” Shane said, but he was looking distant and slightly bleary as well.

 

Someone said something in response, but it sounded so distant that Jess couldn’t make out the words. There was silence for several minutes.

 

The trees Jess had seen when she drank the wizard’s potion kept creeping in and out of the corner of her eyes. A bit of ash fluttered out of the bonfire flame and began to spiral down toward her.

 

Jess was mesmerized. The ash looked alive, as if it had wings. She held up a hand to catch it, but when she pulled her hand back down to look at it, it had already disappeared, leaving a gray smudge.

 

There was a thump. Jess looked up. It took her several seconds to focus and realize that Sebastian had fallen backwards off his stump. Abby was looking down at him, confused.

 

“Are you...okay?” Jess asked. Her voice sounded like someone else’s, thin and whispery.

 

“I think I’m high. Like, really high,” came the mumbled response.

 

“Didn’t realize you were such a lightweight, Sebastian,” Abby giggled. Her voice sounded unfamiliar as well.

 

A pale hand seemed to float up out of the darkness to flip her the bird.

 

“He’s just skin and bones under that hoodie,” Sam said. “It takes pretty much nothing to get him higher than a kite.”

 

“Then what about you?” Abby asked. “You’re not exactly husky, and you seem just fine.”

 

“Nothing wrong with being husky,” Shane interjected.

 

Sam shrugged. “Maybe it’s cause my metabolism is crazy high? I don’t know. I don’t know how drugs work.”

 

“He’s a freak, that’s why,” came Sebastian’s voice. “I think that...whoa...”

 

“You okay?” Jess asked again. She stood up to go check on him and was immediately overwhelmed as the ground and the sky and the fire began to whirl around her and form patterns like a kaleidoscope. 

 

“Are _you_ okay?” She heard Sam ask. She felt him grab her shoulders and sit her back down. “Keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t fall into the fire, okay? I’ll go make sure Sebastian’s fine.” he said and moved away.

 

“What’s going...on?” Jess whispered. 

 

“That mushroom has us on a trip,” Abby said. She was a lot closer than Jess expected her to be. “How’s yours?”

 

“My what?”

 

“Your high. Is it a good one?”

 

“I don’t know...everything feels...so different…” Jess watched the flame in front of her wash closer and further away like waves on a beach. Then she looked down and the ground came ballooning up at her.

 

“Whoops!” She felt Abby grab her arms. “Gotta stay upright, girl. Here,” she linked her arm into Jess’s.

 

Jess looked over at her. Abby’s face was moving further away and then drawing back close, but her arm stayed firm. 

 

“Are you doing okay?” she asked.

 

“Me, oh, yeah. I’ve been high before. Like, I feel it, for sure, but I’m doing fine. I feel a bit...like I’m floating? Moving up into the air and then dipping back down. Like I’m on a flying broom.”

 

“A broom?”

 

“If you hadn’t noticed,” Sam said, “Abby’s, like, super into magic and witches. She usually doesn’t shut up about them when she’s high or drunk.”

 

“I’d make such a good witch. Want to hear my cackle?”

 

“I wanna hear your cackle,” Jess whispered.

 

“Ehehehehehe!” Abby cackled. 

 

Jess could hear the smile on Abby’s face as she laughed. Even though it was a harsh, nasal sound, it made Jess feel warm and soft. “That’s really good.” Her cheek found Abby’s shoulder. It was warm and soft under the rough denim of her jacket. “How’s Sebastian?” 

 

She felt Abby shift. “He’s fine. Sam’s got him sitting up again. The mushroom is all burnt up, too, so we’re probably gonna start coming down soon.”

 

“Unless I throw another log on!” said Sam.

 

“ _No_ .” Shane replied instantly. “If I go home drunk _and_ high Marnie’s not going to let me hear the end of it.”

 

“Agreed. I can’t let my parents see me like this,” Abby said. The vibrations as she spoke shivered through Jess’s head. She could almost see the soundwaves.

 

“Well what do _I_ do until you guys sober up?” Sam asked. Jess saw the thump in her mind as he plopped down next to her on the log. It was a burst of dark gold smoke that stuck to the corner of her vision where the pine trees were still encroaching. 

 

“I don’t know! Eat some more food. Sing us a song.”

 

“A song? What’s a good campfire song?”

 

“The, uh, the one about the houseboat. The houseboat and the waterfall.” Sebastian said.

 

“I forgot about that one! Yeah, that’s fun. Man, I wish I had a guitar! Okay, here goes!” Sam started singing, and as Jess closed her eyes to listen, the sounds turned to colors in her head and danced in time with the rhythm. 

 

After a verse, Abby started humming along, bringing a cool wash of blues and greens to the shades of orange that Sam sang in. Jess started to hear her own breath, long and slow, adding a dusty gray fog to the colors, slowly enveloping everything else.


	14. Secrets

Jess blinked her eyes open and looked around foggily. She was in her bed and morning sun was streaming in the window. She sat up and saw a note written in Sam’s loose scrawl:

 

_ Sleep well! We woke you up to make sure you were ok after the fire went out but you were super bleery so we put you to bed. Thanks for the party! Abby says remember to drink lots of water. _

 

_ \- Sam _

_ PS  I’m taking the last of the marshmellows if that’s cool _

 

Jess rubbed her eyes. If she were back in Zuzu city in a state like this she’d consider calling in sick and risking the wrath of her manager. But here on the farm she had animals that would go hungry if she slept in, and crops that would wilt in the sun.

 

She sighed and rolled out of bed.

 

The Queen of Sauce show happened to be on when she checked the TV, so Jess decided to cook along with the program. The dish was glazed yams, which Jess happened to have several of, dug up only a few days ago.

 

_ I’ve come a long way from oatmeal packets _ , she thought as she chopped and stirred and caramelized. The result didn’t look like much, but it tasted wonderful, and cleared up the remains of the mushroom fog in her head.

 

She stepped outside and sighed again, happier this time. The view from her front porch was so pretty, especially in the fall when the golden and crimson leaves covered the mess of stones and stumps that she hadn’t cleared out yet.

 

She gathered eggs, brushed the cows, let all the animals out to graze, and set about watering.

 

“What are you doing?” Jess jumped when she heard a voice from the entrance to the farm.

 

“Oh, hi Abby! Are you...how are you?”  Abby looked...like a bit of a mess. Her hair was tangled, her shirt was inside out, and she had dark bags under her eyes.

 

“I’m shit. I couldn’t get to sleep for the longest time, and when I finally did I had these crazy, upsetting dreams and I woke up feeling more tired. What are you doing out watering in the sun like nothing’s wrong?”

 

“I found out the cure was glazed yams. That cleared me right up.”

 

“Really? You got any leftovers? I could use something to help.”

 

“Yeah! Come over to the porch and I’ll bring it out.”

 

Jess grabbed the yams and two forks and came out to see Abby slumped against her door frame. She groaned as Jess put a fork in her hand.

 

“Sorry about the bad night,” Jess said.

 

“Eh, it was worth it. The bonfire was a ton of fun.”

 

“Sorry for passing out on you guys at the end.”

 

“Oh, stop apologizing for everything. Hey this stuff is great! It’s yam, you said?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well you’ve gotten a lot better at cooking since when you made spicy eel.”

 

Jess laughed and winced at the same time, “I guess it wouldn’t take much to be better than that, would it?”

 

“I think it made the whole day more special—more memorable, at least. I think it was one of my favorite birthdays ever.”

 

“Really?” Jess glanced over at her hesitantly. Abby’s eyes were closed, head tilted back while she chewed on a piece of yam. Maybe it was just the light, but her eyelashes looked a little purple as well.

 

“Yeah, whenever it rains I’m gonna think about that song we played. It was...special. Hey, when’s your birthday?”

 

“Mine?” Jess quickly took a big bite of yam and spent a while chewing. “Y’know, it’s...why do you want to know?”

 

Abby put her fork down and looked a little hurt. “I just thought it would be nice if I could do something for your birthday is all. But if you don’t want me to know that’s fine, I guess.”

 

“No, no! It’s just, I—ergh.” Jess balled her hand into fists and pushed them into her temples. “I...forget.”

 

“You forget? Your birthday?”

 

“...Yeah.”

 

Abby threw her head back to laugh, but stopped. “That actually seems bad. How early can you get dementia? Cause this seems on a whole other level than having a hard time remembering people’s names.”

 

“I know, that’s why I write a lot of stuff down. Like, hang on.” Jess ducked back inside and pulled a box out from under her bed. Her driver's license was a ways down—it had been a long time since she’d needed it. “Here,” she said, handing it over to Abby as she stepped back outside.

 

“I still can’t believe you forgot your own birthday.”

 

“I mean, I remember it’s fall, it’s just the day is sorta fuzzy.”

 

“Fall 22. A nice, memorable—shit, that’s tomorrow!” 

 

“Oh, oh yeah. Well you really don’t have to do anything for it.”

 

“Like hell I don’t! What sort of stuff do you like? No, don’t tell me. Then it won’t be a surprise for you. Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes at Jess thoughtfully. “I’ve got my work cut out for me, don’t I?”

 

“If you’re set on doing this,” Jess said, “I bet Sam would help.”

 

“Good idea, good idea.” The conversation lulled, but neither girl made any move to leave. “Hey,” Abby said eventually, “what’s the worst thing you forgot? Or, I guess you wouldn’t even remember, huh?”

 

“Oh, no, I remember alright,” Jess said with a pained laugh. She put her hands on her cheeks to try to cool them down. “It’s...it’s worse than my birthday, so you’re going to have to tell me another secret about you if I share.”

 

Abby glanced upward, thinking, then nodded. “Yeah, alright. I’ve got something. Now tell me!”

 

“Okay, so this happened back in high school. I had a doctor’s appointment, so I went into the hospital and the receptionist asked me my name and I just stood there with my mouth hanging open for a good minute.”

 

“No.”

 

“I forgot—”

 

“ _ No _ !”

 

“—I forgot my own name!” Jess closed her eyes and started shaking with embarrassed laughter.

 

“What?  _ How _ ?”

 

“I just—I was an only child and my parents called me Sweetie and Honey, and I didn’t really have any friends back then. None of the teachers called on me in class. All the tests I took were on computers that automatically filled out all my information for me. And I was nervous about going to the doctor on top of all that and I just blanked.”

 

“Oh Yoba, and so what happened?”

 

“The receptionist guy had to just start reading names of people with appointments. It was like four or five before he got to me.”

 

“You must have had  _ something _ that had your name written on it!”

 

“I mean, probably, but I didn’t think of it at the time!”

 

“Shoot, Jess. That’s really bad,” Abby laughed.

 

“I know, I know! That’s why you have to tell me something about you now.”

 

“Mmm, I do.” Abby licked her fork. 

 

“It it...the secret to why your shirt’s inside-out?” Jess asked.

 

“My shirt…? Oh! Look at that.” Abby laughed. “I don’t think I was even conscious when I got dressed this morning. But you’re right, the yam really did help. Here, lemme just…” She set her fork down and began to pull of her shirt.

 

Jess suddenly found her fingers very interesting.

 

“Oh, c’mon Jess, we’re friends. This doesn’t have to be a big deal. I change in front of Sam too.”

 

Jess glanced up. Abby had a mischievous grin on her face. She was holding her shirt wadded in her hands. One of her bra straps had slipped down her shoulder. Her stomach was pale, barring a few stretch marks around her belly button. Jess quickly looked back down at her hands.

 

“I just think fingerprints are interesting,” she said, feeling her face start to burn. “I noticed that the patterns on my right and left hand finger mirror each other, except for the index finger. Those two are completely different.”

 

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m decent now. Sorry if that made you uncomfortable.”

 

“It’s, you know, haha…” Jess rubbed her hands together.

 

“So, my secret. I don’t think Pierre’s my dad.”

 

Jess took a breath, opened her mouth, then closed it. She kept staring at her fingers.

 

“Hmm, I guess that doesn’t have the same fun energy as ‘I forgot my own name,’ does it? Sorry, I thought it would.”

 

“Do you know—what makes you think that? I’m sorry, is that too forward?”

 

“No, no, I brought it up, after all. It’s just...I don’t really look anything like him. He doesn’t understand me at all. We just seem like polar opposites. And one time I heard him and Mom arguing, and he asked her if I really was his. So I’m not the only one who wonders.”

 

“What did your mom say?”

 

“She said ‘of course,’ but there was a pause. I don’t know. It seemed—um, should I go with a different secret? When I was little I pretended to be allergic to tomatoes by holding my breath so long that my face turned red. I scared Mom so bad that she started crying. I knew that they’d be so mad at me if they found out that I never told them. I just eventually told them I’d had ketchup at the saloon and was fine, and they kinda believed that my deadly allergy had gone away.”

 

“And Harvey didn’t find out?”

 

“Oh, this was long before he came to the valley. Things were way different back then. Much smaller. This is a practical city compared to back then!”

 

Jess smiled. “I didn’t realize you were so passionate about your hatred of tomatoes.”

 

“It’s not so bad anymore. Still not a fan, but I’ll eat them. Oh, don’t tell Sebastian about it. He doesn’t know either.”

 

“I won’t breathe a word to anyone!”

 

“Yeah, you’ll probably just forget,” Abby snickered.


	15. Birthday Surprise, Reprise

There was a letter in Jess’s mailbox the next morning.

 

_Come to the beach at 7 pm for your birthday surprise! Don’t forget to show up!!! I made this for you to wear as a reminder._

_-Abby_

 

 

Jess pulled a colorful piece of paper out of the letter and unfolded it. It was a paper crown with the words BIRTHDAY GIRL emblazoned on the front. It was bedazzled in plastic jewels and absolutely coated in glitter.

 

Getting the crown over her hair was tricky, and Jess ripped it in several places, but after a few minutes she was successfully. She checked out her reflection in the pond. Glitter was already smeared across her forehead, and the jewels were making the whole thing droop. She looked ridiculous. Jess bit her lip and smiled.

 

She wore the crown as she took care of the animals and the crops and filled up her preserve jars with cranberries.

 

With the rest of the day staring her down, Jess decided to go fishing down in Cindersap Forest. It wasn’t the best idea, because it left her with a lot of free time to think and worry about what was going to happen in the evening. She decided to chop down some trees instead, to work off some of the nervous energy.

 

She wiped her forehead and sat down on the stump of a particularly stubborn pine tree. Her face undoubtedly covered in beads of glittery sweat, she thought. She took a long, deep breath and noticed the young girl who lived on the ranch watching her, holding a jump rope in one hand.

 

“Uh, um, hey...there.” Jess waved. She never knew what to say to kids.

 

“It’s your birthday?” the girl asked.

 

“Haha, oh, yeah.” Jess ducked her head a little self-consciously. 

 

“How old are you?”

 

“I’m 25 today.”

 

“That’s old,” the girl said with a serious look on her face.

 

“I don’t feel that old.”

 

The girl screwed her face up, thinking. “That’s...one fourth of 100.”

 

“...okay, yeah, now I feel old.”

 

“I’m seven.”

 

“Oh, good! That’s...uh-huh.” Jess was already hot from chopping wood, but she felt herself burn even hotter. “You like jump rope?”

 

“Yes! I’m trying to get 100 skips without messing up. The highest I’ve ever got was 84.”

 

“That’s nice.”

 

“Your name is like mine.”

 

“Oh is it? Are you a Jessica?”

 

“I’m Jas.”

 

“Jas. Is that short for something?”

 

“Uh-uh. Just Jas.”

 

“Well hey, I’m just Jess.”

 

Jas beamed at her, then returned to her jump rope. As Jess got up to leave she heard quiet counting: one, two, three…

 

***

 

Jess paced back and forth along the riverbank. It was 6:47. She was definitely too early. She’d walked a lot faster than she’d meant to. If she showed up on the beach at 7 on the dot would that be too early? Maybe she should wait an extra ten minutes or so. 

 

She looked back into town and caught a couple curious glances from the townfolk moving through the square. Then again, maybe she should just go before someone approached her and asked what she was doing.

 

She pretended to be engrossed by something in the mud under the bridge for a few minutes, collected a bit of clay that she didn’t need,  then headed for the beach.

 

Abby, Sam, and Sebastian had their heads bent over some piece of musical equipment, clearly arguing about something.

 

Sebastian was the first to glance up. He sighed. “Guys, she’s here already.”

 

“What! No!” Abby cried. “Jess, you gotta go wait. We’re not ready!”

 

“I don’t think we’re gonna get the karaoke machine working out here, Abs,” Sam said.

 

“Well, now you’ve gone and given that away too. Erg!” Abby kicked at the ground in front of an amp. “This was gonna be such a cool surprise.”

 

“Karaoke on the beach?” Jess asked.

 

“Yeah.” Abby threw a handful of cords into the sand in defeat. “We were gonna serenade the merpeople. And then I heard there was gonna be a meteor shower later, but,” she scowled up at the cloudy sky, “looks like we won’t be able to enjoy it either.” Arms slack, she smiled over at Jess half-heartedly. “Man, your birthday surprise was amazing in comparison to this.”

 

“I appreciate that you tried. This was really thoughtful!” Jess said. She hugged her arms against her sides and tried not to shiver. With the sun down, the wind off the ocean was very cold.

 

“We can still drink the booze,” Sam said, producing a large, dark bottle from his jacket.

 

“Getting drunk on the beach together just isn’t as romantic as singing under the stars,” Abby sighed.

 

Sebastian shot her a funny look. “Since when do you care about romantic?”

 

“I can like romantic stuff! What makes you think I don’t like romantic stuff?”

 

“I don’t know, what about that song we wrote last year about love being a construct that we futilely use to ward off the terror of existence?”

 

“Ugh. That wasn’t even a good song. And it was pretentious as hell. Maybe romance isn’t that bad.”

 

Sebastian snorted. Sam frowned at her, confused. He looked over at Jess and saw her chewing on her lip and blushing deeply. His eyes widened, and he mouthed an “Ooooh.”

 

Jess’s eyes widened in response and she shook her head quickly.

 

Sam beamed a grin and gave her a huge wink that managed to involve his whole face, causing Jess to collapse into the sand and cover as much of her face with her hands as she could.

 

“Need a drink there, Jess?” Jess could _hear_ the grin in Sam’s voice. Head still ducked and covered, Jess reached a hand up for the bottle.

 

“Jess, you okay?” She heard Abby ask.

 

“You...should probably slow down drinking that. It’s pretty strong stuff,” Sebastian said.

 

“Hhhglah!” Jess spluttered, fumbling to re-cap the bottle. She coughed several times and blinked tears from her eyes. “That’s not...not wine, huh?” She handed the bottle back.

 

“Not at all! And you shouldn’t chug wine like that either.”

 

Jess was already feeling a little lightheaded. She really should have eaten dinner.

 

“ _Sam_ ! I said _don’t_ chug it!”

 

“Hey, last week I was the only one who didn’t get high. I am _not_ gonna be the only one who doesn’t get smashed!”

 

“This is supposed to be a birthday party, not a get blackout drunk party,” Abby sighed.

 

“Well then what party stuff should we do? Jess?” Sam looked over at her.

 

“Yeah,” Abby said. “What would make this mess special for you?”

 

Jess rubbed her neck and looked out over the calm ocean waters, and to the dark lump on the horizon. She’d spent a lot of time staring at it when she came down to the ocean to fish. She pointed it out. “That. On my map it’s called the...Lonely Stone? Do you guys know what it is?”

 

“The Lonely Stone?” Abby looked out at it. “I’ve never been out there. You want to swim?”

 

“Only if you want to freeze halfway there,” Sebastian said.

 

“We could borrow Elliot’s rowboat,” Sam suggested.

 

The group looked over to the old boat, upturned and partially buried in the sand.

 

“I’m not sure…” Jess began.

 

“That’s a good idea!” Abby said at the same time. The two girls glanced at each other and giggled a little.

 

“I don’t think it’s even his boat,” Sam said. “I think it was one of those things ‘for the community’ that no one ever used.”

 

“Well that settles it. Jess, come use your big muscles and help me get this thing turned over,” Abby said. “Boys, go figure out where the oars are.”


	16. The Lonely Stone

“I think the boat is leaking.”

 

“Shit, really?”

 

“Should we turn around?”

 

“We’re almost there!”

 

“No we’re not.”

 

“Do we have anything to bail the boat out with?”

 

“We have the whiskey bottle.”

 

“But it has whiskey in it!”

 

“Then pour it out!”

 

“No!”

 

“Where’s, um, do you know where the leak is coming from? I think I have something that could patch it.”

 

“Jess, you’re literally a lifesaver.”

 

“Which is ironically something this boat didn’t come with.”

 

Jess rummaged in her pack for a hammer, nails, and some of the wood she’d cut down earlier that day. “I’m just gonna, uh, cover this whole area, just to be safe.”

 

“Keep a-rowing!” Abby cried.

 

As Jess hammered, a strange feeling began to come over her. The lump of the Lonely Stone was growing larger in her periphery, and the shudders her hammer sent through the water felt like they were reaching out to...something.

 

Abby seemed distracted as well. “You think that hammering is gonna attract something? Sharks or something like that?” she asked.

 

“Sharks? What? No,” Sebastian snorted. “What are you talking about?”

 

“It just...doesn’t it seem like something’s coming?”

 

“That’s what she said! Ooooh!”

 

“Sam, you’re really drunk.”

 

“ _ Hell  _ yeah! Gonna be seasick pretty soon.”

 

“Well do it over the side of the boat, and don’t fall in.”

 

They approached the stone. Jess suddenly started shivering. It was like a cold draft was creeping out from inside of her. The stone was smaller than it looked like on the horizon, but there was a presence to it that made it seem powerful, like a...like a…

 

“That sure is a rock,” Sam said. “It’s rocking my world. Should we go back now?”

 

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was expecting,” Sebastian sighed. “It’s just a rock.”

 

“Hang on,” Abby leaned forward. “There’s something on it. Get me closer!” She stood up unsteadily at the prow of the boat, and Jess scrambled for her oar. “Yeah, there’s...oh.”

 

“What?”

 

“There’s bones up there. Human—no, not human bones. Merfolk?”

 

“Bones,” Jess whispered. The word felt bubbly.

 

“Abby, I don’t think you should touch them. What if it’s...disrespectful or something?”

 

“Yoba, I wish I had brought my spirit board!”

 

“Ha, that would have been hilarious to watch.”

 

“Shut up. It would have been awesome. I wonder if I’d still be able to reach out to this person’s spirit without it.” Abby stuck her hand out toward the bones and closed her eyes.

 

“Jess, are you feeling okay?” 

 

Sam was looking a little to the left of Jess’s face. She blinked. “Yeah? A little woozy maybe.”

 

“What are you muttering?”

 

“I’m not—”

 

“Jess! Jess! Someone catch her!”

 

“What are you talking about?” Jess heard a splash to the left of her, and turning, saw her own body topple unconscious into the water.


End file.
